


Ain't That a Kick in the Head

by waketosleep



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Video Game World, Canon-Typical Violence, Fallout: New Vegas - Freeform, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-14 23:53:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7196585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waketosleep/pseuds/waketosleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 2281 and the world is a radioactive wasteland populated by scavengers and survivors. Las Vegas is miraculously still standing, a slightly battered, semi-repaired jewel of the Mojave Wasteland, and it's about 30 miles south of the New Vegas Strip that a courier is robbed, shot and left to die alone.</p><p>That's where the story begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ain't That a Kick in the Head

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set in the world (and storyline) of Fallout: New Vegas. If you're not familiar with the game, you should play it because it's great! Also, this fic spoils all of the first act. If you're not going to play it, then a little brush-up on the basic premise, setting and factions in Fallout might help you to follow the story; I recommend [Nukapedia](http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas).

His first feeling was a wave of nausea. Radiation sickness, it had to be; he was cooking from the inside out, like he'd chugged dirty water. Well, if he was going to die messily, he wasn't going to kick it off by throwing up all over himself. He struggled upright.

"Oh good, you're still alive," said a voice that sounded like it was approaching at high speed from far away, going from muffled to loud and clear in no time. It made his head hurt. "I was concerned you'd died and negated all the hard work I did putting your head back together."

He seemed to be sitting upright now; he put his feet on the floor and squinted his eyes open to glare at whoever was talking and giving him a migraine. "Rad sickness," he gasped. "Bucket."

"Don't be a fucking idiot, you don't have rad sickness," said the voice, but a bucket slid to a rattling stop between his feet anyway. He snatched it up and cradled it in his arms just in time.

"Are you sure?" he gagged out into the bucket, when he thought he was mostly done dry heaving. It echoed sourly into his ears.

"I'm a doctor, of course I'm sure." The bucket was pulled away from him and a man appeared kneeling in front of him instead. He frowned, peering intently and ignoring when the silence got uncomfortable.

"Is there something on my face?"

"Not anymore," said the doctor. "You look better. Do you remember anything? Like your name, maybe?"

"It's Nate." He couldn't help leaning back a little on the bed, like that would add distance between him and this guy and make him safer. "I'm a courier."

"And you think you have rad sickness," said the doctor, still peering.

"If I don't, then what happened?"

"You got shot in the head."

Nate's hands flew up to his head before he had even fully processed the urge. He couldn't feel anything--not that he knew what to feel for--and the doctor moved his left hand up to the centre-left of his forehead where there was a small ridge. There was a bigger spot, a slight indentation, behind the curve of the back of his head.

"What the fuck," he said, tracing around the marks with his fingertips.

"I picked out a lot of lead fragments," said the doctor. "You're probably lucky it wasn't a hollow-point they did you with, or you'd still be in the ground." He got off of his knees with a tiny groan and walked over to a dilapidated metal shelf, coming back to the bed with a shined-up piece of metal. "Still, you were kind of Humpty-Dumptied. Your scars are as small as they're ever gonna get but you tell me if I reassembled you correctly."

Nate took the piece of metal and looked at his blurred reflection. The ridge on his head was pink and ugly. His head may not have been as round as it once was. But the face looking back was the same face it had always been. He handed back the makeshift mirror and looked down at his bare feet. "Do you know who tried to kill me? Or why?"

The doctor was puttering around, cleaning up now. "That I don't know. They just dumped you on my doorstep and told me to do what I could."

"Who?"

"The fucking idiots who live in this town." The doctor waved at the front door of his dilapidated house. "Put what's left of your gear back on and go talk to them, if you got so many questions."

***

It was late morning and the sun was blazing; Nate took a moment to adjust as he stood outside on Doc's ramshackle front step. The house was at the crest of a ridge; at the bottom of a well-beaten path was the cracked blacktop of the old road, snaking through the wasteland, and beyond that, flapping canvas tents and the shells of houses dotted the valley. If he squinted, he could just read the rusting, buckshot-riddled road sign that said, '604 McCullough Pass, I-15 Northbound Next Exit'. There were people milling around down below, so Nate set off down the footpath into the valley.

Someone saw him coming and ran to meet him. "Well, how about that. You're alive!" he shouted, raising his arms.

"Yep," said Nate, wincing at the volume.

"When we dug you up, we just left the shovels there in case we had to put you back," said the guy, who was weedy and dark-haired and still talking at a volume higher than Nate would have preferred.

"You dug me up?" he echoed.

"They were really good guys. Yeah. They buried you after they shot you in the head. I mean, how thoughtful is that? Saving all that work. Except that you weren't dead yet, and me and Hasser checked after they fucked off out of here. Well, we were going to loot your corpse, but you weren't a corpse and we're not that mean, so we dug you up and took you to Doc Bryan instead."

"Super thoughtful," Nate managed. "Thanks."

"You bet. Come on, let's go to the bar and celebrate your still being alive."

"I have eight caps to my name," said Nate.

"I'll buy, just this once. If Fruity Rudy doesn't view this as an occasion worth a round on the house, which he really should in my opinion." The guy shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking toward the cluster of buildings that followed the blacktop through the valley. "I'm Ray, by the way."

"I'm Nate."

"Really? I think I'd almost rather just keep calling you 'Courier'."

"Whatever," said Nate, following him over the bumpy chunks of hard-baked asphalt. His boots needed replacing. Also, his shirt was covered in dried bloodstains, so that wasn't much good, either.

The bar was dark and cool when they banged their way inside. "Look who's up and moving around and not a rad zombie!" Ray announced. "It's the courier!"

"Hey! Courier!" the three or four occupants of the place cheered half-heartedly before going back to their drinks.

"Hey, my brother," said the bartender, setting down the glass he was wiping. "Glad to see the positive energies we've been putting your way did some good."

Nate didn't know how to respond to that, but Ray saved him the trouble by sliding onto a stool in front of the bar. "We're celebrating, Rudy. Your finest swill!"

"You can't afford my finest swill," Rudy laughed.

"I was hoping it'd be free, given the occasion."

Rudy looked at Nate for a long moment. Rudy was disconcertingly handsome. "Okay," he relented. "My _second_ -finest swill is hereby going to be poured in celebration of your not being dead, Courier."

It was whiskey. Nate downed half of his in one gulp before clearing his throat and deciding to ask where the hell he was, specifically, and how he'd gotten there.

"You're in Mathilda," said Rudy, back to wiping glasses. Right after he spoke, the radio static got loud and he reached behind him to thump the box, hard; it cleared up immediately into Frank Sinatra. "Ray here and Walt dug you up after those Great Khans shot and buried you." He reached for another glass to wipe. "We figured out you were a Mojave Express courier from the documents you had on you."

"I didn't have a package?" Nate asked.

"Just the papers," said Ray into his drink. "Something about a delivery to the Strip. Don't you still have them?"

Nate dug around in his bag. The delivery order was crinkled under his canteen; he pulled it out and smoothed it out on the bar. "I was delivering a poker chip," he remembered suddenly.

"That's a waste of time to be shot in the head over."

"It was made of platinum."

Ray choked on his whiskey. "Well, you didn't have it on you and I don't have it now, or I'd have gone to New Vegas and blown it all on roulette already."

"I cherish your honesty, Ray. Have I ever told you that?" Rudy said fondly.

"Anyway, the guy in the checkered suit and his gang of Khans must have taken it off you. Maybe they knew you had it?"

"Must have," said Nate, helpless because he couldn't remember anything past accepting the delivery. "I'm really careful."

"You get mugged a lot on the road?" Ray asked.

"Not if you're not a moron," said Nate, putting away the delivery order again and knocking back the rest of his drink, which Rudy helpfully refilled. "So it was Khans and a guy in a checkered suit? Like black and white?"

"Yep. Looked like Vegas if I ever saw it," said Ray. "Why? Gonna go get revenge on them for trying to kill you?"

Nate eyed the full whiskey in front of him and then stood up instead. "Maybe. Mostly I'm just going to go get that fucking poker chip back, or the next guys after me will be Mojave Express, and they make sure you're dead before they take everything you've got."

Ray jumped to his feet so fast his bar stool fell over. "Hold up! You just recovered from a massive, disgusting head wound and now you're going out there by yourself looking for this guy? Are you fucking retarded?"

"I work alone, Ray," said Nate, mildly offended. "It's going to be fine."

"You haven't got a gun!"

"I don't need a gun. I still have my brass knuckles in my bag," said Nate.

Rudy shook his head and pulled out a shiny hand cannon from under the bar, laying it down with a loud clack. "You can't go out there with nothing but brass knuckles and amnesia, my man," he said too calmly to argue with. "Take this. It needs maintenance and the aim lists to the left, but it's better than nothing."

Nate looked at the gun; it was a .357 Magnum. His fingers itched.

"It's loaded," Rudy added. "Six shots before you have to worry about ammo."

Nate picked it up, checked the heft, and nodded. "Thanks. I really appreciate it."

"Just cherish the gift of life, brother," said Rudy. "You almost had it stolen once."

Ray pushed away from the bar, a muscle working in his jaw. "Come on," he said. "If you're leaving right away, we'll go hit up Poke first for supplies."

Poke owned the tiny general store beside the bar, and he made a cranky face as soon as Ray walked in with Nate.

"Fuck off with your half-dead projects and leave me and my shit in peace, Person," he called as soon as the door had shut behind them.

"Courier, this is Poke. Poke, Courier is running away and promises to take his drama with him."

"Good."

"He just needs ammo and like, some Rad-X and water and shit," continued Ray.

Poke looked ready to choke somebody out. "This is a business, motherfucker," he snapped. "I sell shit for caps or trade for goods. I am not running a fucking charity for motherfuckers who don't know to use the buddy system and not get shot."

"Look," Nate interjected, hopefully cutting off the argument before it got too heated, "I have a few caps. I wouldn't mind some extra ammo or powder, if you've got it, and I'll deal with the rest myself."

"How many caps you got?" Poke asked suspiciously.

"Eight," Nate conceded. "But I also have stuff to trade."

"Let's see it."

Nate silently said goodbye to the half-box of Sugar Bombs in his pack, and once Poke had used his Geiger counter to determine it was as low-rad as Nate said it was, he got another dozen .357 rounds and a bottle of purified water in trade. He poured it straight into his canteen to keep it clean and then passed the empty bottle back over the counter.

"Thanks," he said.

"Don't mention it, Courier. Please. To anyone."

Ray dogged him out the door into the sun. "How are you going to get anywhere with no food, no Rad-X and eighteen bullets?"

Nate smiled to himself, checking the ammo was safely stored where he could get at it. "I've been a courier for a long time, Ray. I'll be just fine." He seemed to have everything in order, and turned to face Ray in the street. "Do you know where he went?"

"Who?"

"The guy who shot me," said Nate patiently.

"They said something about the I-15," Ray relented. "I guess the Strip, but I'm not sure."

Nate nodded. "Where's the nearest Mojave Express depot?"

"I guess Primm? That's the nearest everything." Ray pointed down the road. "Go that way. When you hit the I-15, go south. It's about three miles. I wouldn't cut through the desert, there's a lot of gecko nests and you don't have the ammo to waste. Or the Rad-X, if you hit a dirty spot. There's still a lot of those."

"Thanks for all the help, Ray," said Nate, but Ray was running away suddenly. He came back almost immediately with a shitty-looking rifle.

"I'm coming with you as far as the clean well. It's halfway to the 15. I need to check it, anyway."

Nate swallowed a smirk. "If you insist."

He was mentally prepared for Ray to spend the entire walk to this well in a constant stream of chatter, but he kept surprisingly quiet, just scanning the fringes of the road with his rifle in hand. "Geckos," he said after a few minutes. "Lots of them along here. You have to watch out or they'll fucking swarm you."

Nate nodded, watching the road ahead of them, but they made it to the well without incident. There was a cistern there, mostly intact.

"This is most of Mathilda's clean water," said Ray, setting his rifle down against a crumbling concrete block and picking up a bucket. "You should top up that canteen before you g--"

The gecko charged out of a bush from Ray's blind spot, screeching; it was a big one, at least three feet high, and it was running right at them with its fangs and claws bared. Ray was in no position to react so Nate swooped down on the rifle, bringing the sights up just as the gecko jumped for Ray's head. The rifle had a low recoil and decent sights, Nate was pleased to note, and the fucker dropped to the ground dead as a stone before it landed on Ray's face.

"Holy shit, thanks," Ray breathed out, scrambling on hands and knees over to where the gecko was sprawled in a spreading pool of blood. "Fuck, you got it right through the eye!"

"The hide's worth more that way," said Nate, standing up and brushing dust off of his knees. Not that it did much good, his clothes were still in terrible shape even with the dust knocked off.

"Okay, so I guess I understand why you thought you could sashay out of town with a handful of ammo and some brass knuckles and survive," said Ray. "You're a fucking ninja commando."

Nate huffed out a laugh at that one. "You get to be a good shot when you do my job," he said. "I used to have a 20-gauge I kind of miss, though. I don't suppose you found it with the rest of my gear?"

"Sorry, Courier. You were all alone in your unmarked grave," said Ray.

Nate shrugged. "Figures. I had that shotgun modded to fire scrap slugs. I can't blame the Khans for swiping it."

"Damn, son," Ray laughed. "A 20-gauge with slug rounds. You don't fuck around, Courier."

"Look," said Nate, feeling defensive. "I do hot-shot delivery runs up and down I-15 and everywhere else. If it takes me more than one shot to defend myself, I'm wasting ammo. A head or centre mass hit with a 20-gauge slug tends to stop even a raging chem-freak."

"Especially in the eye socket," added Ray, picking up the gecko by its tail. "You wanna skin this before you leave here?"

"It's yours," said Nate. "I travel light."

"Hey! No! You killed it in the eyeball, it's yours to eat or sell, asshole." Ray tried to hand it to him. Nate crossed his arms.

"I used your gun. Keep it, Ray."

Ray glared. "Fine. I'm paying you for it. The hide's worth ten caps without tanning and then there's the meat, so we'll just call it ten."

"You don't have to--"

"Shut the fuck up and take--"

Nate froze, holding up a hand to silence Ray. "Do you hear something?"

"Another fucking gecko?" Ray looked around.

"No. Moaning."

They tracked the sound to the dark interior of a rusted-out trailer, thirty feet away. Nate blinked in the gloom, and then Ray shoved him aside.

"Trombley! You fucking asshole!"

The darker shape huddled in the corner of the trailer moaned again.

"What the fuck," declared Ray, reaching out and dragging him into the light. Trombley's arm was bleeding sluggishly.

"Geckos," he groaned. "Fucking like, three of them. I scared them off by throwing rocks before they could eat me."

"How many fucking times do you have to be told not to go out in the desert alone and unarmed, you stupid piece of shit?" Ray yelled.

"I had a nine! But it jammed."

"Get your ass up, you need a band-aid."

Nate looked down at Trombley, who looked like shit. "You need help getting him back to town?" he asked.

"No, he's fine. Stupid ass can walk." Ray dragged Trombley up to his feet and shoved him out of the trailer, letting him stagger onto the gravel outside. Then he turned to Nate a little more calmly. "The doc is really good with gecko bites. He's gonna be fine. You go get started on your vendetta thing. Come back and visit when you're done. Here's your ten caps for the gecko, don't fucking argue."

"It's not a vendetta," Nate started, taking the caps in a daze, but Ray had picked up his rifle and given Trombley the dead gecko to carry and was already dragging him back down the old road to Mathilda. Nate heard the bitching fade gradually as they became specks in the distance, and then he rubbed his face, went and refilled his trusty canteen, and set off for the highway alone.

***

Primm looked unusually quiet for mid-afternoon; when Nate got within shouting distance of the town outskirts he understood why. There were New California Republic militia scattered all around the west side of the highway. A guard jogged up to him on the road and Nate's hand twitched toward the revolver in his belt before he realized the guard's rifle wasn't pointed at him.

"Who goes there?" the guard called when he'd closed half the distance.

Nate rolled his eyes to himself. "I'm heading into town on business," he called back, waving vaguely at the underpass.

"Well, you can't. Primm's on lockdown."

"Pardon me?"

"Certainly. There was a prison bust at the NCR penitentiary due east of here. The inmates rioted, killed most of the guards and scattered on foot. Now we've got Powder Gangers holed up in Primm. We've been here two days and they're not letting up. If you so much as set foot on the east side of the road, they'll perforate you."

Nate looked at the fence surrounding the town. "Powder Gangers?" he asked.

"Former prison chain gang. They've got their hands on all the explosive ordinance the prison had for rock-breaking, and they're threatening to use it on us. So you can't go into town, business or no."

Nate looked back at the guard again. He sized the guy up silently.

"Maybe you should go talk to our CO," the guard volunteered. "Come with me."

And so they walked past rubble and jeeps, past commandos cleaning rifles and what looked like the lunch shift finishing up their meal, and into a tent nestled between two mostly-whole brick walls.

"Sir, he was at the approach to the town," said the guard, and then buggered off.

A man with a very square jaw, blue, blue eyes and a blond buzz-cut glanced up from the table in the middle of the tent and then grinned broadly at Nate. "A visitor!" he exclaimed, standing up straight. "What brings you here? You don't have news from Command, do you?"

"I'm trying to get into Primm. It's a work thing," said Nate, already edging back to the tent door.

"You can't! You'll die!" said the commanding officer, whose nametape on his uniform said 'McGraw'. He came around the end of the table, all but backing Nate into the door. "These Powder Gangers are guerilla fucking warriors, man. They'll rip you apart!" He started pacing, waving his arms around as he talked. "When they briefed me on this assault, they said it was going to be a cakewalk. Escaped inmates, every man for himself, just pick them off, Dave. But no! They're organized! And they have dynamite! I sent word back to Command about the situation, asked for reinforcements, supplies, and they've done nothing! Nothing! We're all alone out here! And we're going to die." McGraw stopped in front of Nate again and gripped his own chest, over his heart. "I'm too young to die."

Nate glanced back over his shoulder at the tent door. "I don't see what this has to do with me."

"It would be negligent of me to send you into that town to your certain demise! You can't go!" McGraw paused. "But if you want to carry on past, I'll send a man out with you as an escort to the safe zone of I-15. You're heading south, right?"

"The 15 has safe zones?" Nate asked, bewildered. "Since when?"

"We don't need you getting caught in the crossfire that sometimes happens on the road. It's bad for morale, and that's bad enough already." McGraw took Nate by the arm and led him back outside, looking around. "Sergeant!" he called.

Three people looked up.

"Colbert," he clarified, beckoning. A tall man turned around--not even one of the ones who'd looked up at McGraw's first summons--and sauntered over to them.

"Sir." Close up, he looked even more Aryan than McGraw. Nate wondered idly if the NCR had a lot of white supremacists in it.

"This young man needs a safe escort past the town." McGraw let Nate go with a hearty pat on the back. "Godspeed you. Remember us. Someone has to."

Nate and Sgt. Colbert were left looking at each other dumbly when McGraw went back inside his tent. "Let's go, in case he comes back," said Colbert after a moment, nodding at the path back to the road, so Nate went.

"How are you supposed to keep me from being killed in your little DMZ?" Nate asked as they hopped over a concrete barrier onto the asphalt.

"Presumably by drawing fire," said Colbert blandly. They walked in silence through the underpass, and at the edge of the fence keeping Primm from the road, Nate stopped, looking at a gap he could fit through.

"Feel free to tell them I kept going south like I was told to," he said in parting, checking his gun and heading for the fence.

Colbert jogged after him. "You're seriously going to get killed," he hissed. "Captain America wasn't fucking around about that, anyway."

"Maybe," agreed Nate. "But it's a matter of life or death that I go in there, so I'm going."

Colbert looked perturbed at that but didn't press for information. Nate liked him immediately for it.

"Try to dodge the bullets," he advised finally.

Nate smiled. "I was recently shot in the head," he said. "I'm not interested in that happening again anytime soon." And he slipped through the gap in the fence before anything else could be said on the matter.

He was on what remained of a residential street; the houses were boarded up and the mailboxes were empty, so Nate crept up the road, gun held ready in front of him. He had barely rounded the corner of the last house before shots rang out around him, one pinging off the siding of the house. He dove for cover, and once he found a relatively safe corner to peer around, he spotted two guys in dusty blue uniforms, both armed to the teeth. If this was the kind of thing the NCR was bringing into the Mojave, then Nate missed the old days of lawlessness and quickly-resolved gunfights.

This particular gunfight was looking to resolve quite quickly indeed; a lit stick of dynamite went flying past him to land in the front corner of the yard he was crouched in, and he scrambled to his feet and took off around the other side of the building barely a second before it exploded, raining sand and gravel and bits of fence everywhere. Nate slipped up a back alley and took new cover at the rear of a brick building. The two escaped cons walked right past him, going for the house to loot his exploded remains, and he raised his gun silently. The second convict was wearing the brains of the first and just beginning to turn and face him when Nate shot him, too.

Now he had a rifle, and fresh ammo. And a hat, which he put on to keep the top of his head from sunburning. "Thanks, guys," he said, checking the slide on the rifle as he stood up. He breathed in fresh air as he sauntered around the corner. As he'd suspected, the building he'd just been crouched behind was the one he wanted; the Mojave Express sign still hung in decent repair on the front and a little bell jingled on the door as he pushed it open.

The man behind the counter was staring at him in tense surprise when his eyes adjusted to the gloom indoors; Nate clocked that one of his hands was out of sight, down behind the counter.

"My name’s Nate," he said, letting the rifle hang down in one hand and leaving his empty hand in plain view at his side. "I'm a courier." He carefully laid down his gun and very slowly and obviously opened his bag, feeling around and digging out his company badge. At the sight of it, the guy at the counter relaxed, bringing his concealed hand up to lean on the dirty, splintering wood in front of him. He even smiled a little.

"What brings you into Primm, Nate? You're not bringing a delivery, are you? We don't have anything to go out right now, town's locked down..." he trailed off.

Nate approached the counter, fishing out the delivery order again. "I just had a question with a package I was taking to New Vegas," he said.

The guy took the paperwork and frowned at it. "We haven't had confirmation of delivery for this, yet," he said. "I remember hearing about this; there were five others going to the Strip for the same sender and they all made it."

"Yeah," said Nate awkwardly, reaching out for the order. "It hasn't been delivered."

"How come?" the counter guy asked in a tone that suggested, ' _What the fuck are you doing here, talking to me?_ '

"I got mugged," Nate admitted shamefully. "They stole it."

"I see."

"Shot me in the head, apparently," he added, waving at his head scar. "I got better. Sort of."

The guy looked at him in silence for a moment, then glanced back down at the form and back up at him. "This was a priority one hot-shot," he said finally.

Nate nodded. "I've done a few."

"Then you know that non-delivery of the package means that not only don't you get your money," the guy said carefully, "but you're fully liable for it."

Nate grimaced. "I get a week, right?"

"It's six days overdue," said the guy, looking down at the form again. "Unless you've got it in your bag, I don't like your chances, Nate."

"All right, look. I was unconscious. They shot and buried me and I had to be dug up by good samaritans. I woke up yesterday. I know who mugged me--I think it was a hit specifically for that poker chip, it was a guy in a checkered suit and I'm looking for him--I just need a little more time. Please."

The guy looked back at him with big, sad brahmin eyes and an implacably set mouth. "I'm sorry," he said. "Even if you _were_ mugged and shot in the head as you allege, I can't help you."

Nate abruptly lost his temper, which was something he generally tried to avoid doing. He slapped both hands down on the counter. "Come on..." he trailed off.

"Craig," the guy supplied.

"Come on, Craig! I have been a loyal and efficient employee of this service for years! You guys specifically came to me with this delivery, because I am that good at what I do! And I am asking you for more time to fix this! Where is the trust? Where is the loyalty in kind?"

Craig handed the delivery order back across the counter. Nate took it with numb fingers.

"Rules are rules. You know how Mojave Express operates and you knew when you took this delivery. Maybe those good samaritans would have been kinder to leave you buried," he said sympathetically.

Nate stuffed the delivery order back in his bag, picked up his rifle and banged out the jangling front door. Another Powder Ganger was pressed against the wall beside the door, waiting to jump him with a tire iron or something; Nate hit him in the face with the rifle stock and watched him drop like a stone.

***

He made it back to the NCR camp an hour later, hoping they had tools to fix the jamming slide on the rifle. He thought it was full of sand but he'd been firing it a lot. A few of the soldiers glanced up at him as he passed by, apparently recognizing him. He breezed past all of them and went straight for Captain McGraw's tent again.

"Jesus Christ! You're alive!" McGraw cried. "But I thought you were moving south."

"I was in town," said Nate shortly. "Cleared it out for you. The sheriff is dead; you need to go in and sort that out. And I need somewhere to get this gun fixed, if you don't mind."

"My God." McGraw peered at him. "You're not a plainclothes Ranger, are you? Sent from Command?"

"No," said Nate. "Still a courier."

They walked outside. "I don't suppose you want to enlist?" McGraw tried.

Nate spent a moment imagining it: his last day alive, joining the military under this guy. They probably wouldn't even do anything when a Mojave Express sniper took him out. "I have unfinished business on my plate at the moment," he said.

"Well, if you change your mind, you're welcome in my unit," said McGraw warmly. "Workbench is over there. Stay for a meal, if you want. Men!" he shouted. "Huddle up!"

Nate wove through the lackluster crowd of NCR troopers to the bench and set to fixing his jammed slide. It was indeed full of sand. Turned out cons weren't much for maintaining their stolen weapons. Once it was cleared, he glanced up and saw Sgt. Colbert standing over him.

"Hail the conquering hero," said Colbert mildly. "Scuttlebutt is that you cleared the whole town with nothing but your hand-cannon."

"It was mostly the rifle," said Nate, checking the slide one more time before slinging it over his shoulder and standing up. "Anyway, it wasn't that bad. If they were good shots, those guys probably would never have made it into prison, would they?"

Colbert grinned. "I guess not. Did you get what you went in there for?"

"No. And now I have to be on my way, if you'll excuse me."

"What's the rush? Abuse Captain America's hospitality; there's fuck-all on the road south of here and you look like shit."

Nate shook his head. "I need to get the fuck out of here as fast as possible. The guy at the courier depot probably already radioed in that I made contact and the hit goes out on me tomorrow."

"What hit? You're a courier?"

"I lost a package. The insurance is my life. So I really need to get out of here," he said.

"Wait." Colbert stopped him with a giant hand on his shoulder. He was really enormously tall. "You lost a package, got shot in the head, and now you're going to be killed for it. Is that right?"

"That's exactly right."

"Can you find the package?"

"By tomorrow?" Nate glanced up at the sun, tipping into the west. "Unlikely."

"Does your courier service have really good hitmen?"

"I hear they're decent trackers," said Nate impatiently.

"Give me five minutes," said Colbert. "Wait for me down in the underpass, on this side. Okay?"

"I--" Nate cut himself off, because Colbert was already striding away. He frowned. All right. He could wait five minutes.

It was ticking into minute six, and Nate had just decided that he was an idiot and he was leaving with his life when heavy boots dropped onto the crumbling pavement just outside his shady spot. Colbert was carrying a backpack and a sinister-looking rifle and had ditched his NCR red beret.

"Okay," he said. "Let's go while the going's good."

Nate stared. "Are you deserting?"

Colbert took him by the arm and led him down the road, glancing over his shoulder occasionally. "I cannot abide another fucking minute waiting to die horribly under that idiot's command. You've presented me with a new opportunity."

Nate shook his arm free but kept walking. "I don't remember asking you to come with me."

"I wasn’t waiting on your permission. You might be good, Courier, but this little vengeance-on-a-deadline mission you're on is not a one-man job. I volunteer my services."

Nate glared at the horizon. "So now we're going to have both Mojave _and_ the NCR after us."

"They're not going to come after me. I told them I was going to patrol Primm; they'll assume you missed a Powder Ganger and he tragically shot me and looted and ate my corpse. They might accidentally stumble across me," he amended. "But I'm First Recon; technically speaking, unless we run into Captain America again, I'm a ghost."

"I could just shoot you and leave your corpse for the radscorpions," said Nate conversationally, still watching the horizon.

"You could try," Colbert agreed. "If you think you're faster than me."

Nate sighed. The silence that fell had a smug edge to it, on Colbert's part.

"I'm not necessarily looking for vengeance," he said after a while. "Why does everyone assume that?"

"Probably because you were shot and buried alive. That would irritate most people, Courier."

"I'm not most people. And my name is Nate."

"I'm Brad. Better not call me 'Sergeant' or 'Colbert' anymore. And why wouldn't you want revenge? This guy ruined your life."

That remains to be seen, Nate thought but didn't say.

They left I-15 and crossed east into the open desert after a few hours, stopping to pick through an old rest stop that was already picked clean before moving into the scrub. By nightfall, they were on their own in a flatland out of sight of any towns. Brad slowed to a stop at the crest of a small dune, looking around in the faint moonlight and the glow of the rocks and apparently seeing nothing.

"We should stop here," he said.

Nate preferred buildings but appreciated that the only other things out here in the wasteland, so far from the highway, were insects. "Fine," he said, and watched with interest as Brad slung off his pack and started digging through it.

He pulled out a bedroll and two ration kits, one of which he passed to Nate. "Here," he said. "It's clean."

Nate opened it and looked inside in the moonlight. Rice and beans. "How many of these do you have in there?"

"A few days' worth. The rest is medical supplies." Brad kicked the bedroll out flat and dropped down onto it.

"A deserter and a thief," Nate mused as he sat on a corner of the bedroll.

"The rifle's technically not mine, either, but I always take one on patrols. As for the supplies, they won't miss them."

"Not until they find you," agreed Nate, starting to eat. Between the cooling darkness, the food and some sips from his canteen, he thought his persistent headache was starting to clear up.

"I'll take first watch," said Brad, heaving himself off of the bedroll when they were done eating. "You sleep."

Nate blinked. A watch rotation. Maybe there was something to be said for having a travel buddy, after all. He hesitated for a moment at the idea of trusting this guy, but honestly he had nothing left to take and Brad had everything to lose, so instead he just hunkered down under the blankets with his weapons in easy reach. "Wake me if something happens," he said, and barely heard Brad's assent before he fell asleep.

***

Nate watched the sunrise with his rifle laid across his knees. In the bedroll at his feet, Brad stirred and rolled over, making blinking eye contact in the rose-orange-gold morning light.

"Oh good," he said sleepily. "You didn't rob me blind and leave in the night."

Nate shook his head, standing up from his rock and stretching as Brad got out of the bedroll and grabbed for his boots. "Since you didn't do the same to me while I was having the best unmedicated sleep I've ever had," he said, digging out his canteen, "I figured I might as well return the favour. I think I understand why people travel in packs, now."

Brad laughed into the mouth of his own water bottle. He swished some around his mouth, swallowed it, and then asked, "So where are we going?"

Nate faltered, but only for a second. "Nipton," he decided, glancing southeast even though it wasn't visible. "If Checkered Suit didn't go there, then someone in that town at least knows something."

"For a price," said Brad. "And in that hive of scum and villainy, the price can get pretty high."

Nate checked his rifle and accepted the piece of ration bar Brad handed him. "Stick with me, NCR," he said, grinning around the food. "I'm good at getting people to cooperate."

Brad frowned down at himself. "I need new clothes. It'd be safer to pass as local."

"We'll get you something less target-worthy in Nipton," said Nate.

***

When the smudge on the horizon started getting larger and refused to move, Nate decided his eyes weren't playing tricks on him and it was probably Nipton. They'd made good time, although a few giant fire ants had slowed them down (and almost taken Nate's leg off at the knee, but they'd managed to shoot them all before that happened), and the afternoon sun was slanting brightly off of rocks and ruined road signs in the distance.

Brad stopped so suddenly that Nate carried on a few steps past him before he noticed. He spun on his heel, rifle held ready, but Brad was squinting at the smudge of Nipton.

"It'll get clearer if we keep walking toward it," Nate suggested after a moment.

Brad shook himself a little, but looked around and started jogging for a tall sand dune. Nate followed, baffled. At the crest of the dune, Brad raised his rifle and peered through the scope for a long time.

"So what's going on?" Nate asked, feeling the edge of annoyance now.

"I think I see smoke," said Brad, still looking through the scope.

"Smoke? What, is Nipton finally burning itself to the ground?"

The silence stretched the joke out into nothing. "Maybe," said Brad finally. He passed his rifle to Nate, who looked through the scope himself. There was Nipton, a dirty canker sore on the desert; there was the hulking town hall; there was a thin haze of smoke rising into the blue sky. There was a flicker, almost fast enough to miss, behind a building on the main street. Nate lowered the rifle.

"Something's going on down there," said Brad, a little unnecessarily.

Nate handed the rifle back over. "Something's always going on down there," he said. "We'll be careful."

Brad looked doubtful but Nate just started picking his way back down the side of the dune, taking the straightest path across the wastes and watching for scorpions, and he heard the shush and crunch of sand underfoot as Brad followed.

***

It became obvious near the town limits that the flicker and smoke was a tire fire, piled up and smoldering blackly just east of the main intersection, the one that led to the town hall. Nipton looked deserted; no, it looked abandoned. Nate spotted the general store on the left, just before the intersection and the burning tires, and quietly led the way inside, his .357 held cocked and ready.

"Hello?" called a voice from inside as soon as the door creaked open. "Who the fuck is that?"

When his eyes adjusted to the indoor gloom, Nate spotted a guy sitting on a chair in front of the counter. The entire store was ransacked; he stopped in the middle of the shop. "What happened?"

The guy in the chair squinted. "Are you new? The Legion fucking happened."

Brad went visibly tense. "The Legion?" he echoed.

The guy nodded. "They rolled into town a couple days ago. The leader, with the dead dog on his head, he rounded everybody up and said they were gonna have a lottery. Everybody got a ticket. First draws were the lucky ones, they said: they got decapitated. No time to hurt, I guess. The next round got crucified. The one after that all got enslaved and carted away to one of their camps. They found the fucking mayor, wherever he was hiding, and burned his ass to death on that pile of tires. I was second place, so they beat the fuck out of my legs with a hammer. First place, they let him leave."

Nate approached the guy cautiously and saw the mess that was his legs. He winced. "What's your name?"

"Boxcars. Hey, get that fucking pity look off your face. If you're not gonna be smart and turn tail and get the fuck out of here, then do me a favour. You got any chems?" Boxcars looked up at him with some mix of scorn and hopefulness.

Brad joined them. "What kind of chems?" he asked.

"Med-X. Jet. Hydra. I don't give a fuck. I just need a lot of them, you get me?"

"We don't have any, I'm sorry," Brad mumbled, looking awkward.

Boxcars huffed out a laugh. "First time a person ever couldn't get chems in this fucking town, I'm sure," he said. "If you can't help me, then get the fuck out."

They got the fuck out. Nate stepped around the corner from the general store and came face to face with a double line that stood along both edges of the street like lampposts: crosses, with the residents of Nipton nailed to them.

"Fuck," Brad breathed from his side, and Nate followed his line of sight to a crucified NCR trooper, his beret nailed to the post above his head. Nate was doing his best to look away from the scene, he really wanted to, but he was transfixed until a hand grabbed his arm and yanked him backwards suddenly.

It was Brad, thank fuck, dragging him back around the front of the general store. Then he kept going, still holding Nate's arm.

"Let go!" Nate hissed.

"We need to get out of here," Brad hissed back, marching swiftly and quietly up the street the way they'd come. "I saw glimpses of a couple of Legion guys. And the guy with the dog on his head was a vexillarius. If it's a whole unit then we're fucked if they catch us."

Nate cast a last look back over his shoulder and followed without another word. They slipped out of town into the wasteland, the sun burnishing the landscape from low over the mountains in front of them. Brad was leading them back to the 15; Nate let him crest a hill with a view of the blacktop and beyond that, the mountain pass into NCR territory before digging his heels in. Maybe it was the fear of being hacked to pieces by Legionaries that made him complacent for once.

"So, do you have a plan," he asked, "or is this just a panic run for the hills?"

Brad sighed, scuffed a heel in the dirt and glanced up toward where Nate could see the faint outlines of the statues, the two gigantic sheet-metal Rangers shaking hands on the crest of the hill where the NCR Mojave Outpost guarded the route to the Hub.

"There were troopers in Nipton," said Brad, still staring sadly up at the unseen outpost. "If the Legion's assaulting this far west...." He trailed off.

Nate closed his eyes. Apparently you could desert the NCR in name only. "You can't go up there, Brad."

"I know I can't."

He didn't turn back to look at Nate, but he really didn't need to. Nate sighed. "I'll go," he said. "They probably have supplies up there to sell, anyway. News, maybe."

"Yeah," said Brad, making that one word sound more thankful and relieved than Nate wanted to hear. He sighed through his nose and led the way across the crumbling highway and to the base of the hill, where the ground abruptly went vertical under a pile of old cars and trucks.

"You need to go find somewhere to hide," Nate said, looking between Brad and the statues. There was probably a lookout up there somewhere. Probably one who could see the smoke in Nipton, but whatever. This was obviously a sticking point for Brad, and Nate thought he kind of liked sleeping. Getting shot had made him soft.

"I'm going, I'm going," said Brad, casing the immediate area and climbing up inside the husk of a truck, picking his way past empty Nuka-Cola crates.

Nate had zero confidence in this hiding spot, but then again Brad was armed. "Try not to die while I'm gone," he said.

"First Recon," Brad reminded him, but when Nate rolled his eyes and started to leave, he suddenly barked, "Wait, come back."

Nate ducked his head back into the truck, and Brad stuck a closed hand out toward him. Nate reached for it and came back with a handful of caps and NCR money. He looked up at Brad questioningly.

"Get me some clothes," he said. "And a couple boxes of 5.56 rounds. Please."

Nate pocketed the money. "Anything else? Nuka-Cola? Mints?"

"Just try not to die," Brad suggested, smiling tightly. The sarcasm and sass were kind of ruined by the look in his eyes, though. He was spooked by Nipton. Well, so was Nate. That Boxcars guy had been a mess, and he'd still been breathing. Nate hadn't even spotted anybody he knew crucified on the main street. Brad might have.

It was getting dark. Better not to linger. Nate left Brad in the truck with a parting slap to the rusty frame and started the trudge up the hill, glad that it was cooling down so that he didn't dehydrate too much during the trip.

The sky was purple when he walked past the Ranger statues and a guard called out, "That's far enough!"

Nate stopped in a little cloud of dust, his rifle pointing at the dirt and his revolver holstered. "I'm just here for supplies," he said. "And I might have some news."

"Who are you?" The guard shone a flashlight at his face, making his eyes water.

"Nate."

"You're well-armed, Nate. What are you doing wandering the Long 15? It's dangerous these days."

"I'm a c--" Nate swallowed the word. "Prospector," he finished.

"Scavenger, I think you mean," the guard sneered. "Go peddle your scrap metal and steal the silver someplace else."

"Look, I've got caps and news," said Nate. "Take me to your leader or your canteen, I don't really care which."

He got the leader first. Nipton was indeed news to them.

"You're fucking lucky you got out of that town in one piece," said the Ranger in charge of the outpost, frowning down at Nate through a terrible mustache and shades. "But thanks. We thought we'd have to send a patrol down there to see about the smoke. You probably spared us some losses."

"Yeah, you're welcome," said Nate, feeling like something interesting under a lens.

The Ranger frowned some more. "We had word on the radio about a guy recently in Primm, wandered in alone out of the wasteland and cleared Powder Gangers out of the town with a rifle and a shitty hand-cannon like some kind of avenging angel. I don't suppose you were there before Nipton?"

Nate blanked his expression and shrugged. The Ranger let him go.

The canteen had no news about the Great Khans or anybody in a checkered suit, but they had some civvies that would almost fit Brad, along with a change of clothes for Nate that was almost completely free of human blood, ammo for both of them, and a fifth of whiskey. Nate decided to launder Brad's NCR money for the transaction as a favour to him.

The moon was fullish or he'd have wound up bunking in the barracks; as it was, he picked his way down the slope with the new gear carefully, watching for night vermin. The burnt-out truck was silvery in the moonlight, standing tall in a graveyard of dead vehicles, and Nate came around the side with some telltale scuffs of his feet on the gravel before squinting inside.

Huh. Nothing but boxes. Was this the right truck?

He'd just turned his head away to make sure there wasn't another one when Brad's voice hissed from within. "So? How'd it go?"

Nate jumped. Brad's head poked up from behind a little barricade of crates. He'd been totally invisible. "Fine," said Nate offhandedly, ignoring his hammering heartbeat. "They said thanks for the tip. I got some gear."

"Let's go, then." Brad crawled out of the back of the truck, hopping down onto the pavement.

"Want to change?" Nate asked, making motions toward his bag.

"Later. I'm not bunking down in that truck. Come on."

They headed down a stretch of road they hadn't tried yet, and before long Nate could see a gas station, pumps standing out in the moonlight against the scrub.

"Perfect," said Brad, raising his rifle and moving low across the sand to take cover behind a gas pump. Nate followed, switching to his .357, and they crept up to the front door of the station, crouching to either side of it. Nate held his breath and listened through the decrepit wood: nothing. They caught each other's eye across the doorway and Brad held up three fingers, folding them down in turn. When he hit zero, Nate leaped on the doorknob and crashed inside, gun up and Brad right behind him.

Empty.

Nate breathed out loudly, putting the safety back on his gun and rolling his head around his neck as Brad shut the door behind them. There was an old display cooler against the front wall, full of rusting cans and empty bottles, and they shoved that in front of the door as a barricade before poking through the place. Nate found an unopened box of Sugar Bombs and a few caps lost in a corner, while Brad discovered a sack of flour that they sadly had no use for.

"Maybe a pillow," Brad half-jokingly suggested, nudging the sack with his boot and watching a white puff erupt from the top opening.

"You go right ahead," said Nate, popping a Sugar Bomb in his mouth with the full realization that it was probably irradiated and he didn't really care. He crunched down on it.

"We have clean food, you know," Brad said mildly, wandering over to the radio near the broken cash register and fiddling with it. A station came in clear and he turned it down low, letting twangy guitar float through the room as they settled on the floor behind the counter.

"Spoken like a Hub native," said Nate, hauling his bag off to dig through it and toss Brad's new clothes and ammo in his lap. "A few rads never hurt anyone."

"Not at first," said Brad, holding up the shirt in front of him to examine it in the dim light. It apparently passed inspection, because he hauled off his NCR shirt to change. "And I'm not a Hub native," he said, muffled through his shirt. "I'm from the coast."

"Oh, well that's so much--" Nate cut himself off at the sight of Brad's back. "What is that?" He reached out and pushed fingertips against Brad's side to turn him, not really thinking.

Brad breathed in sharply. Maybe he was ticklish or didn't like being touched or something.

"Is that a tattoo?" Nate said when he'd gotten a better look.

"It is. Got it at a shop on the Strip during libo once." Brad obliged Nate by turning away from him a little more, putting his back into the grimy moonlight coming through the gas station window. "Probably hard to see the colours."

Nate traced his fingers down one edge of the tattoo, leaning in closer to see the details. It was a whole scene, something fantasy-ish. It took up most of Brad's lower back. "You tsk at me about eating rad candy and you're getting massive tattoos in Vegas from Jackals or something. Of course, that makes sense," he snorted.

Brad turned back toward him, shrugging off his hand. "It was a while ago," he said, like that helped.

"Uh huh," Nate grinned, reaching to peel his own shirt off over his head. He could not stand another second in his gore-crusted clothes now that he didn't have to. "You're a paragon of virtue and clean living," he said into his shirt before pulling it off his head and throwing it viciously at a corner.

"Jesus fucking Christ," said Brad.

Nate blinked. Brad was staring at his shoulder.

"Where did you get _that_?" he demanded.

Nate looked down at the knot of scar tissue, rolled his shoulder a little bit absently, and shrugged. "Coyotes." Then, since they were having Show and Tell anyway, he lifted his arm and pointed with the other one down at his ribcage, at the jagged knife scar. "And that one was a Fiend."

"You get hurt a lot, delivering packages?" Brad asked quietly. The radio seemed louder in the room, in comparison.

Nate shrugged and found himself looking away at the wall. "Highway 15 is dangerous. You either get more dangerous, or you end up lying in a ditch somewhere."

"So getting shot in the head shouldn't be so surprising, then, is what you're saying," Brad murmured.

Nate laughed, and it caught a little in his throat when Brad's fingertip traced along the knife scar, down his ribs. "I--" He'd been about to say something witty. "It's a personal best," he managed.

Brad hummed in response. He was tracing Nate's ribs with a knuckle now, making eye contact. There wasn't enough air in the room. Nate had been planning to put a clean shirt on.

"Thanks," said Brad.

"For what?"

"For letting me leave Primm with you. Going up to the camp for me. It was important. I didn't want it to be important anymore, but it was."

Nate tried to relax under the hand stroking lightly down his side, trailing toward his back. "You're welcome," he said, keeping his voice from wavering. "And you don't owe me any return favours for it." He gave Brad's hand a pointed glance.

"Oh," said Brad, "I think we're clear with the thanks and my paying for the resupply. This is something entirely separate."

The hand stopped and rested against Nate's waist, a warm spot on his cooling skin. Their faces were a lot closer together than they had been a minute ago, and his own hand was holding him up in his lean across the floor. "Ah," he said intelligently. "Fair enough."

He caught a brief grin with a flash of teeth before Brad leaned in the rest of the way to kiss him.

They passed quite a while making out, trailing hands over muscles and fingertips down the bumpy lines of scars (Brad had a few of his own) before breaking apart, pressing their foreheads together and mashing noses a little while they caught their breath. Something niggled at Nate's brain.

"Oh," he said, remembering and leaning away from Brad only as far as he needed to snag his bag and drag it closer. "Maybe this is a good time to show you what other supplies you bought." And he fished out the whiskey, waggling the bottle invitingly.

"That was thoughtful of me," said Brad, tilting it in Nate's hand to look at it. His hair brushed against Nate's cheek. "Good thing you have me around."

Nate kissed the shit-eating grin off Brad's face, getting his lip bitten for his trouble. He pushed Brad back onto the floor in retaliation, straddling his thighs, and then lifted one hand off Brad's shoulder to pluck the bottle out of his grip (when had Brad ended up holding it, who knew) and pull the cork out with his teeth.

Brad sat up underneath him while he took his swig of whiskey, sliding an arm around Nate's waist and stealing the bottle back to take his own drink from it. Nate's fingers trailed down Brad's throat as it worked with each swallow, and he let them keep going until they came near a nipple. Brad set the bottle down with a loud clunk on the floor (not spilling it, at least) and hauled Nate in closer with the arm around his waist, until his thighs bracketed Brad's hips and then _ooh_ , contact.

This was escalating more quickly than Nate had really anticipated.

He didn't mind.

Brad ground upwards, hard enough that Nate's knees lifted off the floor a little with the motion, and the radio seemed to sense its moment to break back into Nate's consciousness, with a triumphant strum of guitars. “ _Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers, one hundred million angels singing...._ ”

Shut up, Nate thought, and ducked in to kiss Brad some more.

***

They skirted around Nipton and Nelson, heading north and then east through the flat scrub for two days until they came to a crumbling road; they followed it into a canyon, watching cliffs soar up on either side as they walked through shadows.

“This is tactically unsound,” said Brad, craning his neck to see the canyon rim above them.

“But also fast,” said Nate, forging ahead.

“There are apparently snipers after you,” Brad pointed out. “In case you’d forgotten.”

“At least they aren’t Legion snipers. Or deathclaws.”

“Deathclaws don’t use ranged firearms.”

“And I am continually relieved by that knowledge.”

They made it half a day’s walk into the canyon, following the road along gradually inclining switchbacks, before Nate heard a sharp whistling noise and a loud ping. He looked instinctively to his right, at the sunbaked, burnt-out husk of a toppled tractor trailer, and saw the shiny dent of a bullet impact.

“Get _down_ ,” Brad hissed, shoving Nate’s shoulder and making him realize he was still staring dumbly. He jolted into action, diving behind the overturned trailer and listening to the whiz and ping of a few more bullets while Brad crouched beside him, calmly checking his rifle.

“This is a bad spot,” said Brad, glancing along the road. “Let’s move up, past the front of the trailer to that car.”

“Am I going to get shot in the head again?” Nate asked, still huddling.

Brad pulled the slide on his rifle, peering inside and letting it snap back into place with a loud click. “Not if you’re quick.”

Nate made a face, not that Brad was looking. There was nothing for it; he took a deep breath that did nothing to calm him or steel his resolve, and then he moved, crouch-running to the front edge of the trailer. The car was there, a slowly decomposing bulk with mesquite growing in clumps around it, but there was an open stretch of five feet between him and it. He looked back at Brad.

“I’ll cover you,” said Brad, balancing his rifle on the edge of the trailer and peering through the scope. “Go.”

Brad fired a shot that ended with a distant noise of striking rock. Nate dove across the gap, rolling back to his knees in the dust just as another bullet from the cliff sniper kicked up sand behind him. He flattened himself against the side of the car, which seared hot through his shirt, and looked over at Brad, who was crouched with his back against the trailer, rifle held up across his chest. He glanced over at Nate and grinned, then turned to take aim at the sniper again. Nate watched him line up the shot, saw the way he absorbed the recoil into his shoulder like it was nothing, heard the crack of the rifle report and then the distant noise of pain as he hit his mark. Nate chanced a look over the edge of the car door; he could faintly see the shooter on the cliff clutching at one shoulder. When he ducked back down, Brad was beside him, setting up again on the trunk of the car.

“Mu-u-uch better,” Brad said, evidently mostly to himself, as he peered through his scope again. “Stay down,” he cautioned, which was pretty fucking unnecessary considering another shot thumped into the roof of the car while he was still speaking.

Nate stayed down. He tried to lean against the car but the metal was baking hot through his thin shirt and making him sweat more than the stress already was, so he awkwardly hovered in front of it instead. The car’s mirror was still attached and the glass in it was still sort of reflective, from what he could tell. He reached up and snapped the mirror stem off the car with a screech of rust; the mirror was bisected by a crack but the halves were large and as clear as any mirror to be found outside of a Vault. Nate held it in front of him, adjusting until it showed not his dirty, scarred and sunburnt face but the brown edge of the cliff and the blue sky above, and then found the figure crouched behind a boulder exchanging fire with Brad.

It was impossible to see details like whether the shooter was bleeding from the shoulder wound, but the shots continued sporadically. “He can’t be very good,” said Nate.

“He fucked up when he didn’t get us immediately,” said Brad, peering through his scope. “Now he has to smoke us out or hope for some luck. It’s a waiting game.”

The mirror suddenly exploded. Nate dropped it like it was on fire, shaking shards of glass off of himself and barely remembering to stay down in the process. A slug rattled out of the mirror frame onto the sand and he stared at it.

“Maybe he’s a little good,” Brad offered.

Nate crossed his arms over his chest to hide the shaking. “How do we smoke him out?”

“We’re not.”

“We’re not?”

“We’re waiting until enough of him pops up that I can catch a piece.”

“Or, how about you keep him distracted while I cut behind him with the .357,” Nate offered.

“If he were ten feet away and not working from a height advantage, that strategy _might_ not get us both killed.”

“I could play the distraction. Go run serpentine through the canyon and you pop him when he shows his head.”

Brad started laughing, a very entertained gut-laugh. He still never took his attention away from his rifle scope. “Be patient. He’ll fuck up eventually. Everyone does.”

“That implies you don’t.”

“I fuck up, too,” said Brad. “I can just wait longer than most people before I do it.”

“Is that sanctioned NCR strategy?” Nate asked, shifting his weight to his other foot and feeling the blood rush back into his lower legs. “Fuck up last?”

“Yes sir,” said Brad. “Hello there,” he said after a second, and his rifle cracked loudly.

The next few seconds were heavily silent.

“We’re good,” said Brad finally. He was standing up and stretching before the meaning sank in for Nate.

“Are they dead?” he asked, craning his neck to look up at Brad. He was hesitant to stand up. That was probably ridiculous, but he was.

Brad just reached out a hand and pulled him to his feet. “We should go check the body,” he said, fiddling with his rifle before slinging it onto his back. “See who it was.”

“It was a Mojave guy, probably,” Nate shrugged, peering up at the cliff edge.

“Probably. But I can’t stand a mystery.”

It was a sweaty climb up the rocks; they found a less sheer approach to the sniper perch but it required walking in a wide arc around the cliffs, coming up out of the canyon somewhat until a gentler slope and a footpath presented themselves. The sun had moved in the sky by the time they stood over the body.

Nate covered his nose with his sleeve to block out the smell of baking blood and crouched to roll the corpse onto its back. It was a woman, shot through the neck as well as the left upper arm. Her clothes were dusty denim, under the crusted blood that had pooled around her and soaked into everything, and her rifle looked half-decent. Her pack leaned against a boulder a few feet away from her body and the blood hadn’t quite made it that far aside from some spatter; Nate picked it up and dumped it out on a clean patch of ground.

“Mojave Express,” he confirmed, finding her company ID and his kill order.

“Did she deliver packages, too?” Brad asked drily.

“These guys are all contractors,” said Nate. “The ID grants you perks in some places, that’s all.” He stood up, dusting off his hands. “Let’s get out of here.”

They got out of there. “Was that it,” Brad ventured after a while, “or will there be more?”

Nate thought about that, squinting at the dropping sun and the purpling sky. “They normally don’t die,” he said.

“That was remarkably unlike an answer.”

“It was a true statement. You can draw your own conclusions.” He glanced over at Brad, who looked calculating.

“They put out one kill order at a time to save money,” he said slowly. “The sniper reports regularly on their progress and status. Non-reporting means they’re assumed dead after some length of time. Maybe a few days. Another order goes out.” He paused. “I’m guessing they pay on proof of death.”

“Probably,” said Nate.

“So we have a window to disappear.”

Nate shook his head. “I’d have to go to the fucking NCR to disappear. If I stay in Nevada, they’ll find me. If I recover the lost package, though, the company might retract the kill order.”

Brad nodded, but he was looking at the horizon or something on it.

Nate glanced over at him again. “You don’t have to stick around and bodyguard me.”

“I know,” said Brad, still looking ahead.

***

They made it to Novac in another two days, and it was a sight for sore eyes. Approaching from the hills, they went through a tiny cluster of houses to approach the main drag of the town. Nate looked around at the buildings, some boarded up and some showing signs of life: cultivated cactus, swept front porches, a brahmin standing disinterestedly behind a reinforced fence.

"Have you been here before?" he asked, glancing back over at Brad.

"Passed through once but we never really came into the town," said Brad. "There are a few NCR outposts in the area. Power plant up that way." He pointed north, up the cracked highway. "The bigwigs consider that place a stronghold, never mind it doesn't fucking work. I think they're still mad about fighting off the Brotherhood for it."

"There's a Mojave dropbox in the motel," said Nate. "The beds are usually more or less clean, too, although the lady who owns it gives me the fucking creeps."

Brad squinted, bringing a hand up to shade his eyes. "Do I see a giant dinosaur?"

"Welcome to Novac," said Nate with a smile.

They split up at the motel; Brad went to get a room and Nate crunched his way across the motel's yard to the giant dinosaur statue, climbing a set of rickety stairs to a door in its hip.

A bell tinkled overhead and an old man looked up when Nate stepped into the dinosaur's belly, blinking from the switch to electric light.

"Welcome to the gift shop," he said, giving Nate a tired smile. "If you wanna go up in the mouth, that's the stairs over there. Don't mind the sniper, he don't talk much. We've been having some trouble with Legion raiders coming in from Nelson."

"That's fine, I'm okay," said Nate, looking around at the stock. First aid kits. Instant coffee. Rad-rich boxed food. "I'm mostly just looking for supplies," he said, reaching into his bag for the pouch he kept his money in. "Any deals?"

"Oh," said the old man, and his right hand slid out easily from where it had been hidden behind the counter. "Well, we're having a special deal on T-Rex souvenirs. Still a few left!"

"How about clean water instead?" said Nate. "Maybe ammo."

The old man sighed. "I will never get rid of these fucking T-Rexes. Yeah, we got water. Sarsaparilla, too. I got a machine in the back room, keeps 'em kinda cold. Ammo's mostly .308s and 20-gauge shells, although there's a reloading bench people use in the old gas station over yonder." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Feel free to browse."

But Nate had stopped listening, because there were guns displayed on the wall behind the counter and one was a 20-gauge shotgun that looked like it had been around the block. "Can I take a look at that shotgun?" he asked, pointing at it.

The old man lifted it off the wall and handed it across the counter. It felt fantastic in Nate's hands, the worn-smooth stock sliding through his hand like a caress when he turned it over. He held the butt of the gun up in the light cast by the bare bulbs strung around the shop and squinted at the wood, hoping an insane hope, and there it was, catching shadows when he angled the stock just right: a hand-etched 'NF' gouged into the wood. He tried not to let anything show on his face, clinically looking over the rest of the gun. His baby was just as he'd seen it last, except for needing to be cleaned. "Where'd you get this?" he asked in a neutral voice. "Looks like it's been messed with."

"Someone brought that in last week, passing through town," said the old man, crossing his arms and leaning a hip on the rickety counter. "Gang of Great Khans. Wasn't sad to see the back of 'em; we got enough trouble with Caesar and his cult in these parts."

"Great Khans, huh?" said Nate. "Pretty far southeast for them these days."

"They weren't your average. Some asshole in a check suit was with 'em. Gave lip to Jeannie May over the quality of her rooms. Guess they weren't on par with the silk sheets he probably gets to sleep on up in New Vegas. Well. He'll be back there by now, back with the other slick bastards."

Nate nodded, frowning appropriately over the disrespect to the motel. "How much for the shotgun?" he asked.

"I might could take a trade for it," the old man mused.

Nate unslung the rifle he'd picked up back in Primm and laid it on the counter.

The old man looked it over. "This rifle has seen some shit."

"Shoots pretty straight," said Nate, and after a pause he reached in his bag and pulled out the ammo box for it, slapping it down on the counter with a rattle of bullet casings. He raised his eyebrows.

"S'pose you’ll want some ammo to go with your new shotgun, too," the old man said after a long moment.

"S'pose I might," agreed Nate, grinning with teeth. "And that clean water we talked about."

***

There was a definite spring in his step when he skirted back around the dinosaur's tail and headed for the front desk of the Dino Dee-Lite Motel, where Brad was leaning on the outside wall waiting for him.

"You look awfully pleased with yourself," said Brad when he got close.

"You got us a room?" Nate asked, unable to stop smiling. Brad nodded, hiding his own smile, and led the way upstairs to the second storey of rooms. The door opened onto a largish room with a queen-size bed, neatly made.

"I thought the rate was kind of a gouge, but maybe it's worth it for a clean bed behind a locked door," Brad mused.

"Coming here was completely worth it," said Nate. "See this gun? It's mine."

"A sound purchase," Brad agreed, casting an eye over it.

"No," said Nate, "you don't understand." He turned it to show Brad the initials etched into the stock. "This is literally my shotgun."

Brad peered at it. "No shit. So the guys who robbed you came through here?"

"Last week. Pissed off everyone in town and then headed for Vegas."

"They moved pretty fast," said Brad.

"I knew there had to be a reason they went after me," said Nate. "Some kind of tip-off or something."

"Well," said Brad, "we can make Vegas in two days. The problem will be getting past the NCR and Legion patrols."

"They can bring it on," said Nate, smoothing a hand over the glossy stock of his shotgun. "I'm gonna fix this baby up to fighting form again and then I dare them to stop me from getting that package back."

Brad stepped in close and gently took it away from him, resting it across the top of the desk in the corner. "In the morning," he said, running his hands up Nate's arms and rucking up his shirt sleeves.

Nate reached back and locked the door, then twitched the curtain shut. "In the morning," he relented, walking Brad back towards the very inviting bed.

***

A grey dawn found them curled around each other. It felt nice, Nate thought as he stretched his back and ran a hand down Brad's side and over his hip. He thought maybe it was a feeling he could get used to pretty quickly. The work ahead on fixing up his guns passed through his mind, but then Brad's eyelashes fluttered as he squinted himself awake with a little groan and Nate had to lean down and kiss him instead. Brad rolled onto his back, pulling Nate down overtop of him and rucking up the sheets, and Nate slid a thigh between Brad's legs and decided that cleaning the guns could wait another half an hour.

"Good morning," Brad said into his lips. Nate hummed back, shifting his thigh until Brad arched under him and kissed back harder. "I never got wakeup calls this good in the military," Brad breathed into his neck as they moved together.

"Glad I turned down recruitment then," Nate gasped, reaching down between them to pick up the pace. He had been thinking of slow and lazy but his body had other ideas. Better ones.

"Fuck," Brad hissed as Nate's hand moved frantically. "Oh God. Harder."

Nate pressed his face into Brad's shoulder and Brad threw a leg around the back of Nate's knee, improving the angle. "Brad," he panted.

"That's it, come on, come for me," Brad moaned, grinding up into Nate's pumping fist. "Say my name when you do it."

"Jesus Christ," said Nate, and came with a little shout into Brad's collarbone.

Brad choked out a laugh. "That's not my name but thanks."

Nate twisted his hand viciously, his grip sliding wet with his come, and Brad bucked again and came all over him. Nate made eye contact and deliberately licked his hand clean while Brad watched, shuddering. Then Brad rolled them over and pillowed his head under Nate's chin. Afterglow, Nate realized as he lay there feeling his limbs hum. Normally, there wasn't this kind of time. He smiled tiredly up at the stained, cracked ceiling and let his fingers trail over Brad's skin.

"I gotta tend to that shotgun," he said after a while. Brad stirred, apparently having dozed off again.

"Okay," he mumbled, dragging himself off Nate and flopping onto his back again. He threw a hand over his face.

"Get cleaned up and we'll hit the road before it gets hot," Nate said as he slid out of bed and picked his way over to the bathroom. The water was in a bucket under the sink, and he doled it out for a spot-cleaning before pulling on his clothes over still-damp skin. Brad got up and did his own thing as Nate settled on the floor to take apart and clean his guns. When Brad joined him, laying out his rifle on the floor, he said, “I think I’m gonna go visit the store before we head out. Did they have anything worthwhile in small arms?” And then he said, “Nate?”

Nate tore himself away from the mesmerizing sight of Brad’s strong fingers stripping his rifle as easily as breathing. Brad was smirking. Nate licked his lips. “Sorry, what was that?” he asked, and Brad’s smirk grew.

“Any small arms in the big dinosaur? Besides the two mounted on the front?”

“You’re hilarious,” said Nate. “I can’t remember.”

“I’ll go look when we check out,” said Brad. “I think if we’re going to make Vegas in two days and have ourselves a showdown, more firepower is in order.”

“Well then, maybe he has a rocket launcher,” said Nate, checking the sights on his revolver. He was optimistic that he’d fixed them.

“You keep talking dirty to me like that and we’ll never make it out of this room,” said Brad, looking up at Nate through his eyelashes.

Nate grinned and repacked his bag. “And won’t the next sniper after me be surprised when they find us!”

Brad snorted and stood up after Nate, slinging his rifle over one shoulder. 

They checked out of the room and slid the key back across the counter to the bored old lady who ran the motel, and then Nate led the way across the gravel yard and up the rotting wood stairs into the dinosaur's belly. The old man smiled up at them across the counter, but kept his hand hidden down below as he checked them out. 

"This your friend?" he asked. "Like your new gun? I don't do refunds, mind," he said, straightening up like he was ready to fight over it.

Nate opened his mouth to respond but Brad beat him to it. "He'll keep that in mind," he said, approaching the counter and peering up at the guns on the back wall. "Can I see that nine?"

The old man startled and then turned around to take it off the display for him. "It just come in last week," the man said.

Brad checked it out efficiently, letting the slide click home as he said, "I can give you 40 caps for it, plus some ammo."

"You drive a hard bargain, young man. It's listed for 65."

Brad set it back down on the counter. "How much ammo you got?"

"Box and a half," said the old man without looking.

Brad nodded. "That and the gun, 50 caps. Yes or no?"

There was the tiniest pause before the old man said, "Now listen here, I'm not running a charity. I can't see my way to less than 65 for the lot. That's free bullets already."

Brad nodded, then glanced back over his shoulder at Nate, who had no idea what he was supposed to do. Brad smiled with just the corner of his mouth, nodded once and then turned back to the shopkeeper. "Fifty caps and I've got $5 NCR money."

The old man muttered under his breath about goddamn NCR money for a second before abruptly pushing the gun back across the counter towards Brad. "Let me get your bullets," he said, crouching down to reach under the counter. "Want a complimentary souvenir T-Rex?" he added, muffled by the shelves.

"No, thank you." Brad patiently doled out the money while the boxes of bullets rattled onto the counter and not another word was said as they packed up and left the shop.

"He didn't like me much," said Brad once he reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Didn't like me much either," said Nate. "I did a trade-in for mine. And neither of us bought a souvenir T-Rex."

Brad tugged him by the sleeve, directing him over to the old gas station where a reloading workbench was visible. Nate leaned against the creaking wall of the station while Brad cleaned and loaded his new sidearm.

"The Helios power plant is about an hour north of here," said Brad as he worked.

"So it is," said Nate, squinting at the washed-out blue sky. Something was circling near the sun; vulture, probably.

"That's an NCR base. There's also Boulder City and Camp McCarran to get past. NCR patrols, too."

"And the 188, and Repconn, and snipers trying specifically to kill me, and whatever bands of Legion and fiends and deathclaws are roaming the highway," added Nate. "It's not a safe road, Brad."

Brad frowned down at the rag he was cleaning his gun with.

"Weren't you the one who said you're First Recon and so you're a ghost to most of the army anyway?" Nate recalled. 

"I felt cockier about it when I said that," said Brad to his hands. "Thought I had less to lose."

Nate blinked at Brad, sunspots in his vision, and wondered if he'd understood the meaning of that correctly.

"We need a plan," said Brad. "I suspect you've spent more time in this area than I have. Couple operations near Hoover Dam and libo is the only time I can count. So, what's the safest way to travel?"

"Quickly and in numbers," said Nate easily. "Daytime is usually better, because you can see the fiend ambushes coming as well as the military patrols. I know a couple rest stops to sleep at but in a perfect world we want to hit the 188 by nightfall. There's a couple of gun runners there who don't fuck around with security and they extend that protection to any travellers who aren't starting trouble." He looked over Brad's clothes. "Unless you're literally recognized by somebody, I think you'll get past the NCR patrols as well as I can. You're probably right that they think you died in Primm."

"Probably," agreed Brad. "They only do manhunts for traitors and psychos. All the same, I'd rather not wander into any kind of base. There's a slim chance I'll meet another First Recon guy posted there, for starters." He slapped a loaded clip into his nine-mil and checked the sights before putting it away.

Nate gave a lopsided grin as he watched Brad clean up. "Fine by me. Who the fuck wants to associate with anyone from the NCR, anyway?"

Brad shot him a look and then pinned him against the wall. "Only deviant personalities of highly questionable character," he said against Nate's lips, sending fire rushing through him in advance of a filthy kiss. Nate was just reaching a hand up to dig fingers into the scruff of Brad's hair when Brad stepped back, leaving him cold.

"You...." Nate trailed off, his hand falling back to his side.

"Save that thought for later," said Brad, backpedaling to the open doorway. "Day's a-wasting."

Nate heaved himself back upright and followed, scuffing his feet in the dust.

***

Despite Brad calling a halt barely half an hour north of Novac so that he could wrap up his rifle in a length of cloth from his pack (which Nate thought was paranoid, although it was also relatively harmless as paranoia went), the highway from Novac to New Vegas was in reasonable repair and they made good time, far better than when they'd trekked cross-country from Nipton and the Ranger outpost. They got past the Helios power station--dark, quiet and bristling with NCR troopers--without any incident more exciting than Brad turning a little bit pale and moving a little faster.

Dodging insects at the dry lakebed on the way north, they crested a hill behind a half-rotted Repconn Industries billboard and Nate's heart swelled at the distant glow of the 188 trading post in the dusk. Everything was going so well.

"Hey! You!" shouted a gruff voice behind them.

Nate closed his eyes in pain for a moment before turning around with his arms out ready at his sides. Brad went tense; they were facing a three-man NCR patrol.

The soldiers clumped towards them in a loose arrow formation, automatic weapons held in a relaxed but two-handed grip. The hair prickled at the back of Nate's neck. "Can we help you gentlemen?" he asked. Or, well, he growled it, sort of, and then wished his brain worked faster than his mouth a little more often.

The lead trooper gave them both a slow once-over as his team flanked him, also staring. "What are you doing out on this road at this hour?"

Nate jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "We're going to camp at the trading post," he said.

"Not much around here," said the trooper, looking him over again.

Nate sucked at his teeth and counted to ten. "We're going to Freeside. My sister lives there."

The trooper nodded as if this checked out with him, and then turned his attention to Brad. "Doesn't your friend speak?"

Brad had a good poker face on, but looked a little tense around the eyes. Maybe a little green around the gills, too. "When I have something to say, I do," he said, very calmly.

"You're both very unfriendly," observed the trooper. "Where you coming from?" He was asking Brad.

"Novac, last night," said Brad, meeting the trooper's eyes. Nate kept an eye on the other two while he was out of the spotlight. "Stayed in the motel there. We've been on the road a while."

"Came from the south?" one of the other two troopers asked conversationally. Trying to trip Brad up, because the only thing directly south of Novac for the past few months was burning settlements and Legion camps.

"We took the long way from Matilda, did some errands," said Brad. "Too many bandits to go the quick way."

"You two look like you can handle a bandit," said the lead trooper. 

"In Sloan, on the Long 15?" Nate scoffed. "The town the NCR gave up on, with all your fancy weapons and training? I'm flattered!"

"There's been reports of deathclaws up that way, Sergeant," one of the men murmured to the leader.

The sergeant held up a hand to silence his lackey, never breaking eye contact with Nate. "You two be careful heading up to Vegas," he said as though most of the conversation hadn't happened. "There's word of Legion raiding parties all along this highway. Some of 'em in regular clothes, so they can infiltrate civilian and NCR populations alike." He turned his glare back onto Brad. "So if you see any suspicious groups of two, three armed men, maybe who look just like you, be careful. They might be Legion spies and terrorists."

Brad blinked a few times while Nate chewed his tongue and felt faintly amazed. "We'll be sure to keep that in mind," Brad managed after a moment. 

It was left to them to turn their backs on the NCR patrol and their guns to walk down the hill towards the welcoming light of the trading post. Nate fought to keep his pace easy and measured, to not give into the downhill momentum and the gathering darkness and haul ass to safety. He also fought not to look back, to try to see in the dark if those troopers were still standing on the road watching them go. Brad's hand nearest him was clenched in a fist, swinging down at his side but not far from where Nate knew he'd tucked away his pistol. He thought he heard Brad sigh in relief right along with him when they reached the glowing perimeter of fire barrels and concrete picnic tables that ranged around the stalls and caravans of the 188. 

The shops were closed for the night, except for one that apparently served as the bar. A handful of traders sat around the tables drinking rotgut and old Vault beer in an atmosphere of comfortable but weary silence. 

"This is lively," said Brad, looking around. Nate smiled and approached the bartender. 

"Got any water?" he asked. She blinked and swept a hand across the weather-beaten counter, brushing crumbs away. 

"Got a lot more than that," she said. "But if you insist."

Brad leaned against the bar beside Nate. "I'll have a sarsaparilla," he said. "And a whiskey chaser."

She smiled at that order and Brad returned it with a level of charm Nate considered to be overkill. The bartender blushed and then shuffled off to get their drinks. 

"What?" Brad asked Nate, still grinning rakishly. "Jealous?"

Nate rolled his eyes. "If you're aiming for jealousy, try harder."

Brad bumped their shoulders together. "You look like you stepped in irradiated gecko shit."

"I've never seen you lay it on thick like that before," said Nate, returning the bump. "The nausea was a reflex."

Brad snorted. "You should try being charming sometime. You might like it."

Just for that, when the bartender passed their drinks across the counter, Nate tipped her a little extra--with Brad's caps--and thanked her with a grin showing some teeth and a little wink to boot. She smirked back and he decided to press his advantage, leaning across the counter just a hair as he said, "Oh, hey."

"Yeah?" she said, leaning a hip into the counter and forgetting immediately that Brad existed. 

"Is that fortune-telling kid still hanging around?" Nate asked. "I was telling my friend here about how good he is."

"Oh, yeah!" she said, and then went on animatedly, "He's still down in the underpass. I think he's staying. The gun runners have an agreement to keep an eye on him. He's amazing, isn't he?" She finally spared another glance at Brad. "Passing through here without getting him to do your fortune is just crazy, your friend has to do it. Hey," she added, grinning up at Nate again, "tell him Sarah said to give you the friend discount."

"Well that's very generous of you, Sarah!" Nate enthused. "We'll go bother him in the morning. Thanks so much for your help."

"Sleep well!" Sarah waved after them as they left the bar for a semi-secluded picnic table. 

Nate dropped onto a bench seat and huffed a laugh into the mouth of his water bottle as Brad sat down across from him with a stony expression. 

"What's wrong?" he couldn't help asking. "Jealous?"

Brad shook his head in defeat as he cracked open his soda, pocketed the bottle cap and then dumped his whiskey shot into the bottle. He gave the drink a swirl to mix it as he contemplated Nate, who was pretty sure he still had a cheeky grin plastered on his face.

"Smug bastard," said Brad finally. Nate burst out laughing.

"You're right," he managed to choke out, "being charming sure is fun."

"Yeah, you're a real smooth operator," Brad drawled, and then paused with his soda raised almost to his lips. "Was that all payback for this morning in the gas station?"

"You could consider that to be part one of two," Nate suggested, reaching for his canteen to pour the rest of his water into. He caught a glint of understanding in Brad's eyes and watched the long column of his throat work as Brad leaned back to drink down his sarsaparilla as fast as possible. 

***

Nate woke to dusty morning sunlight streaming into his eyes and something jabbing into his left shoulder blade; he rolled over, grunting, and found himself pressed up against Brad, an arm slithering up over his waist in response and Brad’s hand flattening against his back to pull him in closer. Nate blinked his vision clear and saw that Brad was apparently doing this in his sleep. They were on a creaky, rock-hard mattress that had been haphazardly tossed on the rusting floor of a camper. That had been a spring poking him in the back, then. He squinted up at the window cut into the side of the camper--long since empty of glass--and saw only the bleached-out morning blue of the sky. The sun was still too low to get in his eyes from this angle. Brad breathed against his cheek and Nate ran a hand down his arm, from shoulder to elbow.

“Wake up,” he said quietly. “We need to head out.”

Brad stirred and rubbed his hand up and down Nate’s spine once before letting him free. They both rolled onto their backs and rubbed at their sleep-crusted eyes. Nate raised his head off the mattress enough to see there was another dark lump curled up on a mattress at the far side of the camper, still in shadows, and then let his head flop back down again.

“Vegas today?” Brad asked the pitted ceiling.

“Freeside, anyway,” Nate guessed. “I have contacts at the Mormon fort, if we need to crash outside the Strip tonight.”

“You hang with the Followers of the Apocalypse?” Brad huffed. “Seditious.”

Nate sat upright, bracing himself with a hand. “That’s me. Okay,” he said with a light smack to Brad’s leg. “Up. We’ll go see the Forecaster before we hit the road.”

They helped each other to their feet, stretching and popping stiff joints, and Brad rolled his head around, cracking his neck and shoulders. “That kid under the bridge? You were serious?”

“Why not?” said Nate, leading the way out past the other sleeper and hopping down to the ground with a crunch of sand. The hill that supported the Highway 95 bridge sloped down in front of them, offering a curving path that brought Nate and Brad down onto the crumbling blacktop of Highway 93 right next to a trader, sitting on a blanket surrounded by pieces of body armour. She nodded up at them as they passed, heading into the shade of the underpass. Nate blinked in the gloom and then the outlines in front of him resolved into a neat arrangement of junk, lined up on a concrete shelf on the wall and spilling onto the sand around a kid who could have been twelve years old but not much more than that. He was wearing well-mended clothes and had a weird metal contraption on his head.

“Good morning,” said the kid.

“Morning,” said Nate. 

“Are you here for a forecast?”

“We are,” said Nate. “Sarah sent us down,” he added, pointing vaguely up as he said it, in the direction of the bar.

“Oh,” said the Forecaster. “In that case, seventy caps. It’s normally a hundred,” he added in a conspiratorial whisper. He glanced over at Brad, who had come up beside Nate without a word. “You want one too, mister?” he asked.

Brad opened his mouth and only got out the first sound of his objection before Nate spoke over him. “Yeah, he does.”

The kid nodded. “I think I can manage two. It’s a nice morning. You want a forecast for you, here or everywhere?”

Nate blinked. “Me,” he said impulsively, and handed over the caps when the kid extended his hand.

“Okay,” said the kid, taking deep, steady breaths and then reaching up to take off his headgear.

“What are you doing?” Brad asked.

The kid paused and frowned. “It’s how I do the forecast,” he said, as if Brad were stupid to ask. “I can’t think when I’m wearing my medicine. It has to come off or the thoughts can’t come in.”

Brad did not look reassured by this, and watched warily as the Forecaster took off his headgear. The kid went abruptly still, blinked rapidly several times, and then his head sagged down to his chest.

_”Lost it all but you got a re-buy. The ace you once held is on the table, someone else’s hand. You don’t know if you should double down... odds are against you but they always were. Big risk, big reward, but if your luck doesn’t hold you’ll be eliminated from the game this time. Maybe it’s time to walk away from the table. Forecast: Cloudy with a chance of justice.”_

The silence that followed his words was finally broken by the solemn clink of Brad placing another handful of caps on the ground in front of the boy. A small hand reached out to clutch at the pile as he took another deep breath.

_”Jack of diamonds, the greatest of the Trojan warriors, but you died on the battlefield. Even as the King of Diamonds marches from the east towards a clash of empires, you find your fight elsewhere... the fourth King, the four horsemen... you could be a kingmaker, but the weapons of war will perish. You’ll leave your fate in David’s hands. Forecast: A rain of blood will flood the desert and a new world will bloom.”_

“What the fuck,” said Brad faintly. Nate watched him, taking in the shock and his pale cast.

“Did I say something bad?” the boy asked, and Nate turned to see that his headgear was back on. He was looking back and forth between them with a nervous edge to his features.

“You don’t remember what you said?” Nate asked.

“I can’t hear anything when I’m thinking,” the kid said mournfully. “I hope it was nothing bad. You seem nice.” He shifted in his seat in the dust. “Sorry, my head hurts after all that thinking. I should take a nap.”

Nate led Brad back out into the sunshine by his sleeve.

“What the fuck,” said Brad again. “Why did you take me to that kid?”

It didn’t sound like he actually wanted an answer, so Nate stayed silent. The stunned look was slowly being replaced by grouchiness, which he thought was a good sign. Brad didn’t say anything else, so Nate turned to climb back up the hill to the 95, starting the home stretch to Vegas through the shimmering heat-haze.

Half a mile down the road, Brad said, “That kid was a psyker.”

“Guess so,” Nate agreed. “I’ve never met one.”

“I have,” said Brad shortly. Then he sighed. “They’re usually more violent.”

“Might explain why he’s living all by himself under a bridge,” Nate offered. “You think because he’s a psyker, his rambling was significant?”

“I don’t know what to think about someone guessing the future, but he was a little too accurate about the past,” Brad growled. He was kicking up little puffs of dust from the road as he walked.

“To be completely honest with you,” said Nate, “a lot of what he said didn’t make any sense to me. Like, who the hell is David?”

“Hmm,” said Brad.

***

Around midday, they walked under the wreckage of a raised highway whose concrete support columns were covered in bullet pockmarks and graffiti. Nate stopped and swept his arms up, presenting to Brad the vistas of red-brown hills, defaced NCR posters on crumbling buildings and the still-distant towers of the Strip, the Lucky 38 spire glinting in the sunlight. “Welcome to New Vegas.”

Brad looked around. “We’re not there yet.”

“This is kind of the unofficial outskirts,” said Nate, and then he heard the mooing of brahmin. “I think that’s the rest stop over there,” he said, pointing at a cluster of wooden buildings.

It was indeed the Grub n’ Gulp Rest Stop, advertising brahmin barbecue and beds by a fire. Nate felt tempted by the former and led the way over to the lunch counter (a wide board balanced on concrete blocks) and was just opening his mouth to get the attention of a woman who was turning meat on a spit when a shot rang out.

The woman ducked and swore; he and Brad turned as one unit with weapons raised before Nate consciously registered where the gunshot had come from. Three men were approaching from the east, apparently having come from the hills, and one had a rifle in his hand, pointed upwards. Another carried a machete that flashed bright and the third had what looked like a chainsaw, from the way he was holding it.

Nate’s first thought was that they were Fiends, but the one with the machete was wearing a dog’s head as a hat.

“Motherfucking Legion,” said the woman, who was now on one knee behind a boulder and had picked up a pump-action shotgun from somewhere. “Fitz!” she yelled, and the door of a nearby shed banged open. The man who rushed out had a hunting rifle with a scope on it, and he joined the woman behind her rock.

“We got customers, Lupe,” he said, glancing over at Nate and Brad.

“We’ll be right with you,” Lupe said loudly, without bothering to turn around from where she was watching the Legionaries.

For a second it felt like everything froze around him and Nate could see the situation clearly: a Legion raiding party was no fucking joke, small but fast-moving and usually all seasoned killers. But these ones only carried one gun between them and Fitz and Lupe were firmly entrenched with superior firepower, sitting behind good solid cover and sighting down their guns like this was just an annoying distraction. He could see his graceful exit from the scene: crouch behind the counter, move back to behind the sign, wait for the first shot fired to draw everyone’s attention away and then set off to the northwest, low to the ground at first and then relaxing into a nice, ground-eating jog towards Camp McCarran, just about the cleanest possible getaway.

Then he saw Brad, who had already flipped the plank of the lunch counter off of the concrete blocks and was flat on the ground with his rifle resting on the edge of the wood and probably someone’s face in his crosshairs. The moment passed. Nate shifted to a better position and opted for his shotgun, ready to back up the rifles at close range along with Lupe.

Brad’s shoulders tensed, there was a _crack_ and the Legionary with the rifle staggered, grabbing at his throat through a spurt of bright red. His compatriots slowed a little as he dropped to his knees and Nate struggled to watch both of them at the same time as he took in the thud of the Legion rifle hitting the dirt and the incongruously slow sway of the dead man falling right behind it, even as he grabbed frantically at his throat with both hands. He coughed a spray of blood onto the sand when he landed and then seemed to relax into his own death. The one with the dog hat picked up his gun; Fitz took a shot at him and seemed to graze an arm. Dog Hat retaliated by throwing his machete, which scythed through the air and bounced point-first off of the rock Fitz and Lupe hid behind. Fitz jerked back from the knife as it flipped harmlessly past his face, but apparently Dog Hat had been going for distraction instead of maiming, because he had the rifle ready for Fitz to pop out of cover. The boom of Dog Hat pulling the trigger was overlaid by Lupe cracking one off with her shotgun, still too far away to be effective. Another sharp rifle report popped in Nate’s ear hardly a second later and Brad cleared the slide without a single unnecessary movement, aiming and firing a third time with hardly any pause. He was targeting the third Legionary, the one with the chainsaw, and Nate watched as the Legionary dropped his chainsaw like it had burned him. 

“Put a hole through the gas tank,” said Brad as the empty brass casing joined the other two in the dirt with a clink. Nate looked up again; the Legionary was shaking his hand as though it was wet, crouching over his chainsaw and glancing up at the fight between examining the damage Brad had done. At least that was one weapon out of commission. 

Lupe was reloading her shotgun; Fitz was lying on the ground. Nate judged the distance between himself and the Legionary who was about to shoot any exposed part of Lupe and raised his shotgun, double slug rounds chambered. He unleashed both with a squeeze of the trigger and the Legionary rocked back like he’d been kicked in the chest by a brahmin, overbalancing and staggering as he tried to grab at his gaping chest wound with one hand and keep hold of his rifle with the other. Lupe stood up and emptied her shotgun into him.

The third Legionary jumped to his feet, leaving his chainsaw in the dirt, and ran for it. Lupe dropped her shotgun and threw herself down beside Fitz, shouting his name, and Nate almost jumped out of his skin when Brad fired his rifle again. He looked just in time to see the escaping Legionary collapse in a puff of red.

“Cleanup should always be that easy,” said Brad as he pushed himself to his feet, rolling his shoulders and stretching his neck out.

Nate looked back to where the Legionary had gone down in a rain of skull fragments. “You shoot people in the back a lot?” he asked before he could stop to think about the words.

“Only when they’re Legion and they’re running away,” said Brad tonelessly as he broke down his rifle. He looked up at Nate abruptly. “You let one of Caesar’s dogs go, you can count the days until you get woken up by him and nine of his friends.”

“I guess.” Brad was likely absolutely right but Nate felt uneasy. Of course, Nate had wanted to run from the fight in the first place, and even with them staying to assist it looked like Fitz was dead, with Lupe just slumped over him and stroking his hair endlessly.

Maybe he and Brad were just different types of bastard.

His gaze wandered back over to Lupe, still sitting in the dust over Fitz’s remains. “I think we should just get out of here,” he said.

Brad re-wrapped his rifle and slung it back over his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

They left the tragedy of the Grub n’ Gulp Rest Stop and set off on the crumbling highway for the glimmering excess of the Strip. Beyond the shadow of the overpass, the dry dirt gave way to slightly less dry, churned and irrigated rows of spindly plants. Corn, maybe. Nate was no farmer. They skirted around what could have been considered very large gardens or very small fields, which were protected from invasion by rusty chain link fences topped with much shinier concertina wire. The other end of the gardens, where a clump of shacks leaned against each other, were guarded by a couple of patrolling NCR troopers.

“Some kind of food pilot project for the locals under NCR protection,” Brad explained, walking with his head down. “Although I hear it mostly goes into Camp McCarran.”

“Well, that’s true of a lot of things around here,” said Nate, idly kicking a stone and watching it rattle off the asphalt into a puff of dust. “Where does the water come from?”

“There’s a lake by Camp Golf.”

“What? That’s so far to truck water from!”

Brad pointed, discreetly, at a huge pipe running several feet overhead; it seemed to be partially supported by what was left of the overhead highway. “They use a pipeline. And it doesn’t come all the way from the lake; there’s a couple canals. I think someone dug them. Cost a lot of fucking resources.”

Nate craned his neck to see the pipeline running off into the distance. “All that for a couple rows of scraggly vegetables.”

“They’re pretty concerned about supply lines to and from the coast,” said Brad, still looking at his shoes and apparently doing his best impression of somebody uninteresting until they got past the farm patrols. “The passes to the Hub are well-defended but I think they’re sweating a little over Caesar’s numbers.”

“Caesar sounds like he’d climb over the bodies of his own army to get to the Hub and call it a glorious victory,” said Nate.

Brad looked grim. “Pretty much.”

They kept going, getting past the farm project and into what could loosely be called a neighbourhood--clumps of houses in good enough repair to look like they were inhabited, with flattened dirt trails crisscrossing between them where the streets had vanished. Brad finally relaxed and looked up with interest as they came up to the outer gates of Freeside.

“How are we getting into the Strip?” he asked. “I’ve only ever gone via the monorail from McCarran, I realize now.”

Nate nodded at a man in a long white coat who was leaning against the tin fence; the guy nodded back and reached up to knock twice on the metal. The gate heaved open. “We’re going in the same way the rest of the dust-covered rabble goes in,” he said as they walked into Freeside, squinting in the suddenness of the shadows cast by the huge fence. It looked the same as his last visit: drifts of old trash, small children chasing giant rats through the streets, the scrabble of Fiends in dark corners waiting to mug you and in the middle of it all, the stoic, solid wood fence that surrounded the Old Mormon Fort. More people in coats passed in and out of the gates of the Fort.

Brad had clearly never set foot in Freeside. He was gawking like a particularly embarrassing tourist. “What’s with all the white coats?” he muttered, grabbing Nate’s elbow to speak down into his ear. “Are they all Followers of the Apocalypse?”

Nate leaned back a little to stare judgmentally at him. “Yes?” he said. “Who else would they be?” He waved at the Fort. “That’s their headquarters.”

“There aren’t any defences besides the fence,” said Brad, looking it over.

“They don’t need them,” said Nate. “They do charity work. What’s theirs is yours. Well,” he amended, “they do tend to carry laser pistols. I’ve seen one or two of them fuck up a Fiend in self-defence, but first they always wait to see if this time the Fiend _won’t_ try to assault them.”

“You hear all kinds of shit about these guys back home,” said Brad. “Like that they’re secretly the Enclave. Insurgents and saboteurs.”

“Well, no shit the NCR doesn’t like them,” said Nate. “If that little farm plot out there belonged to the Followers, there wouldn’t be razor wire around it and it would be four times the size. With better-looking plants.” He gave Brad a pointed look. “If that doesn’t make them the enemies of freedom, I don’t know what does.”

“Big fan of their work, are you?” grinned Brad.

Nate shrugged. “I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest in the Mojave to pick sides, when we don’t know who’s going to win yet. But I don’t see too many factions running around handing out free medical help or food and blankets with no strings attached, either. Do you?”

Brad put his hands up, silently surrendering.

Nate started walking again, but threw a wink back over his shoulder at Brad. “On the other hand, the Followers are _absolutely_ a bunch of anarchist revolutionary punks underneath the charity, and I respect that.”

The sun was starting to dip lower in the sky as they strolled through Freeside, Nate setting a pace slow enough for Brad to rubberneck everything around them. 

“This place is like the Strip for burnouts,” Brad marveled as they passed a casino with a radiation-ghoul working the door.

“You wanna be on the Strip, you gotta be in with the cartels,” said Nate. “If you’re out, you’re out here.” They passed the Kings’ headquarters, followed by the watchful eye of three footsoldiers on door duty; they slouched against the wall or kicked back on squeaky chairs with longnecks of Sunset Sarsaparilla, guarding a radio blaring honky-tonk. Their white t-shirt sleeves were rolled up over their cigarettes and the Kings looked as laconic sitting around in the dusty, golden evening as it seemed possible to be, but Nate knew two of them had high-cal revolvers tucked in the backs of their jeans and the third was idly toying with a pair of brass knuckles as she gave Brad a once-over. Nate averted his eyes, hoping they didn’t catch him staring, and fought not to pick up his pace.

The road funneled to a point between chain-link fences and concrete barricades, pushing all foot traffic toward the one gate into the Strip and the four Securitrons who guarded it. Nate watched Brad watching the setup.

They were only about five steps from the checkpoint when Brad couldn’t help himself anymore. “How are we supposed to get through?” he asked Nate through his teeth. “There are _turrets_. Why are there turrets?”

Nate smirked. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course!”

“Then keep your mouth shut,” he said, walking past the knee-high barricades (rusty-red with splatters of old blood) and right up to the Securitron that was whirring towards them.

“HALT,” it said, a police officer’s face rippling across its display screen. “PLEASE PRESENT YOUR VALID AND CURRENT CREDENTIALS AND-OR ENTRY PERMIT. VIOLATORS WILL BE EXECUTED. IF YOU DO NOT POSSESS A NON-EXPIRED PERMIT TO ENTER THE STRIP, YOU MAY CONVENIENTLY PURCHASE ONE FOR THE REASONABLE FEE OF FIVE THOUSAND CAPS.”

Brad, now standing behind Nate, audibly choked at the price, but managed to keep it somewhat subtle.

“Mojave Express,” said Nate, pulling out his identification and holding it steady for the scanner. “We have a delivery for Mr. House, at the Lucky 38.”

“PLEASE PRESENT YOUR PAPERWORK.”

Nate calmly held up the waybill for the missing poker chip.

“WELL, THIS ALL SEEMS TO BE IN ORDER. WHO IS ATTEMPTING TO SNEAK IN BEHIND YOU?”

Nate reached back and grabbed a handful of Brad’s shirt, hauling him forward. “He’s with me. New employee; I’m training him. So he needs to attend the delivery.”

“WHERE IS THIS MEATSACK’S IDENTIFICATION?”

“He’s probationary,” said Nate. “He’ll be with me at all times.”

The Securitron whirred and clicked a little. “VERY WELL,” it said finally. “PLEASE PROCEED THROUGH THE GATE IN AN ORDERLY FASHION. HAVE A NICE STAY.”

The other Securitrons opened the gate just far enough to squeeze through. Nate folded up his papers and tucked them away again as Brad exhaled in loud relief.

“You gonna be okay?” Nate asked.

“I thought for sure we were gonna get turned into hamburger,” said Brad. “How did you know that would work?”

Nate thought about how to answer for a second and decided that if Brad could trust, then he could be honest. “I didn’t know if it would,” he admitted.

Brad gaped.

“But it did work!” Nate said brightly.

Brad rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I regret asking.” He blinked and looked around. “Well, we made it. Now what?”

Nate wished he knew. “I guess we ask around about a guy in a checkered suit,” he said. “Can’t be that many.” Ironic that it seemed the poker chip had almost gotten where it was supposed to go in the first place.

“And then what happens when we find him?” Brad pressed.

Nate’s brain slid right past that thought without stopping. “I get the chip back, deliver it. Get a signature. Get paid, maybe. Definitely get the kill order revoked. Ride off into the sunset? I know a little town southwest of here with friendly locals, lots of empty houses and great gecko hunting around the clean well.”

Brad didn’t seem to appreciate the levity. “This motherfucker tried to kill you. He shot you in the head over a fucking _poker chip_.”

“It was made of platinum,” Nate pointed out. “It’s more valuable than you’re making it sound.”

“He and his Great Khan cronies took your gun and buried you before you were even dead. In all these miles we’ve come to get here, you haven’t thought about how you want to deal with that? For that matter,” Brad added, building up a head of steam now, “what the fuck were you doing delivering a platinum poker chip to the Lucky 38 in the first place? That place isn’t even open! It’s just some empty, dead husk,” he said, waving toward where the concrete steps curved up to the dark, bolted double doors of the Lucky 38 casino behind Nate; two more Securitrons stood in front of the doors in case anybody got any funny ideas. “What is going on here? Who the fuck is Mr. House?” Brad demanded. “Don’t you want to know?”

Nate looked at the angry creases in Brad’s forehead; he looked up at the sky over the fence, which was starting to fade from blue to purple; he glanced over the lurid neon signs of the Gomorrah and spun on his heel to crane his neck up at the spire of the Lucky 38, the spike on a roulette wheel piercing the sky. A dead monument to the distant past. He stared up at the tower for a long time, thinking, and when he finally blinked his gritty eyes and looked back down at the ground, he knew what to say to Brad.

“We’ve seen, and done, a lot of shit together in a very short time. But you don’t know everything about what I saw or did in my life before we met in Primm. If you know me another ten, twenty years, I still may not tell you all of it. But life has taught me a very hard lesson: there are some things we’re better off not being too curious about.”

Brad’s face was unreadable in the silence that fell between them. Nate was just starting to feel anxious when Brad suddenly moved, and he fought back his twitch reflex to stay still as Brad stepped close, grabbing his hip with one hand and pushing the blunt, warm fingers of his other hand up through the hair at his nape to hold Nate in place for a deliberate, pointed kiss. It felt like the punctuation to something he hadn’t said, and Nate’s guts melted as his fingers traced their way along Brad’s upper arm, shoving up his t-shirt sleeve to grope the tight muscle of his shoulder.

Brad broke the kiss before Nate was ready, pressing their foreheads together and speaking into their shared breath: “It’s your fight. I don’t have to agree with you to support you.”

Nate was sure he was going to cry; he huffed some kind of raspy, hitching laugh-sob and nodded gratefully against Brad’s forehead, darting forward to steal another kiss before they separated again. “I’m really glad you invited yourself along,” he said.

“I have no regrets,” said Brad, and he picked up Nate’s hand and laced their fingers together as they turned to face the New Vegas Strip and all its debauched wonders.

Nate started to lead the way to Gomorrah, figuring they should just case all the casinos for information in order, when an NCR Ranger jogged up to them.

“Sergeant?” the man asked, a little out of breath. Nate opened his mouth, baffled and ready to give this random drunk asshole the brush-off, when he realized he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore because Brad had them in a death-grip.

“Sergeant Colbert,” the man said, looking satisfied. “I knew that was you as soon as I saw you.”

Nate’s gaze travelled from Brad’s white knuckles to Brad’s white face; he looked like he might throw up. A quick glance over at the Ranger didn’t add much information to the situation.

“Kocher,” Brad said finally, his voice just slightly strangled-sounding. Kocher the Ranger didn’t look fazed.

“Man, how you been?” Kocher asked warmly, extending a hand to Brad for a handshake. Brad disengaged his claw-like grip from Nate and shook Kocher’s hand as pins and needles tingled up Nate’s fingers. He flexed his hand surreptitiously and tried to gauge the danger of the situation, but between Brad’s stiff anxiety and Kocher’s clear happiness at seeing him, it was hard to figure out what to do.

“Good, good,” said Brad a little distantly. “You on libo?”

“Last day,” Kocher said. “Good thing; I’m out of money. Man, I haven’t seen you in a while. I just heard a rumour you got ganked at Primm in that standoff, actually, so I’m glad to hear that wasn’t true.”

Brad didn’t respond.

“I didn’t hear you were on libo, either,” Kocher went on. “You’d think that would have killed the rumours. Did you get put on something secret? I heard there’s a few operations running out of Golf; Dirty Earl let something slip when he dropped in on McCarran for supplies the other day. He didn’t mention you being posted there either, though, come to think of it.”

Brad kept up his stony expression and Kocher, clearly on the edge of figuring something out, finally seemed to notice Nate standing there. He watched Kocher take him in from head to foot: his messenger bag, his battered weapons and dusty clothes, his proximity to Brad. The fact that Brad was in similarly dirty civvies, weapons covered and insignia gone. The realization that they’d been holding hands when he’d first approached. Nate saw the insight dawn on Kocher’s face and the all-over tensing of Brad’s body in response and had no idea what to do.

Kocher looked back up at Brad’s face for a long moment, then cut one more look over toward Nate. He nodded a little, maybe not intentionally. “You know,” he said carefully, “I think I actually forgot something in my room at the Tops. I’m gonna go back and take a look for it. It’s good to see you well, Colbert. You two take care.”

Brad stayed so tense he was practically vibrating until long after Kocher disappeared from sight, back in the general direction of the Tops. Nate was scared to touch him. He leaned forward a little instead, into Brad’s line of sight. “Hey. Was that something to worry about?” he asked tentatively.

Brad shook a little and the line of his shoulders loosened again. “No,” he said. “I think we’re good.” He looked at Nate with clear eyes. “Kocher’s a good guy. We go back a long time.”

“You seem spooked, though.”

“It’ll pass. Come on.” Brad turned back toward Gomorrah and spotted a guy in a suit cut so sharply it seemed pointy, who was smoking in a little niche between a pair of dancing neon flames. “Let’s go talk to that guy. He looks like he works here.”

He was a stand-up comedian and he went on stage at Gomorrah in an hour, apparently; when he realized that neither of them wanted an autograph, the guy suddenly wasn’t so keen to talk to them but did volunteer that a guy in a black-and-white checkered suit sounded “like one of those ring-a-ding-douchebags” who ran the Tops, almost without a doubt. Apparently nobody else but “those Frank Sinatra-worshipping freaks” would dare be seen in public in a getup like that.

They thanked the guy for his help and walked back down to street level, squinting in the last burst of dying light before the sun went down.

“It was kind of a long day,” Brad pointed out, reminding Nate he’d woken up that morning at a crossroads market and had endured all the different kinds of ambushes you could conceivably fit in a single day.

“I’ve had better days,” he agreed.

“Should we find a room someplace?” Brad asked. “Pick this up tomorrow?”

“Are you kidding me? I can’t fucking sleep now until this is over. Let’s go to the Tops.”

“It’s your show,” said Brad, following him through the brightening lights and thickening crowds of the Strip. “Maybe it’s better I get out of here before someone else I know runs into us, anyway.”

Nate slowed his pace just enough to let Brad draw up beside him again. “Next time you want to come here, maybe wear a disguise,” he suggested.

“I’m sure I could live a fulfilling existence if I never came back here again,” said Brad, glancing up at the animated dancing ladies and hellfires adorning Gomorrah’s signs.

“It wears you down,” Nate agreed as they rounded a corner and came face to face with a gigantic, colourful sign advertising “The TOPS Hotel & Casino”. He craned his neck to look up at it as it washed everything nearby with blinks of pink-yellow-green-blue-pink light in the dark. “What are those things on the edges of the sign, jacks? Stars?”

“Yep,” said Brad, after pondering the artistic touches for a second. He looked toward the casino doors, where two young guys in white jackets with black lapels stood smoking and comparing the shine of their shoes. “’Ring-a-ding-douchebags’ was right. Now what, do we just go inside and look for this motherfucker’s visual obscenity of a jacket? What if there’s more than one of them? I’m starting to feel like there actually could be.”

Nate grinned and started walking purposefully toward the entrance. Brad caught up with a quick hop.

“You’re planning to make shit up as you go along again, aren’t you?” he accused.

“I’ve been doing it my whole life and I’m still alive,” said Nate flippantly. “Must be working okay for me.” He thought about asking the kids who were smoking, thinking they might be waiters or something, but then caught sight of the perfectly coiffed woman with jewel-shiny lipstick who sat behind the hotel check-in desk. “Jackpot,” he said, startling Brad, and pushed through the streaky glass doors into the Tops. He was buffeted by warm air that smelled like perfume and cigarettes and carried the sound of lounge music and the clink of casino chips past his ears. The woman at the desk gave him a bland smile and a subtle once-over, and Nate smiled and straightened his spine just a little as he sauntered over. She darted a look over his shoulder and straightened her own spine, her eyes widening just a fraction, and he guessed Brad had followed him inside.

“Evening, welcome to the Tops,” she said. Her voice was a little throaty and tugged Nate’s heartstrings. “You gentlemen have a reservation?”

“We’re here looking for someone, actually,” said Nate. “Maybe you know who he is? I can’t recall his name but he likes to wear this black-and-white checkered jacket.”

The receptionist cocked her head at him. “I think you must be talking about Ray. Funny you’d forget his name,” she said. “Being as he’s the boss of the Chairmen and you came right on into his casino.”

She looked cautious but not really afraid of him, so Nate figured he might as well push. “Well,” he said, “I’ve had some memory problems recently. In fact, pretty much ever since he shot me in the head.”

The receptionist leaned back in her chair and stared at him for a minute. “You look pretty good, considering. So, what do you want to see him for, if that’s how you met him last time?”

“He’s got something of mine,” said Nate. “I intend to ask him to return it.”

“Well, I’ll tell you ahead of time he’s not going to, not if he tried to kill you for it in the first place. Ray’s a lover, not a fighter. Although he’s not much of a lover either, frankly.”

“More information than _I_ needed,” Brad muttered, and the receptionist obviously heard that because her mouth curled up into a satisfied little smile. 

Nate stayed focused on the task at hand. “I appreciate your concern, ma’am, but don’t worry about me. I can be very persuasive.”

“Oh, please don’t mistake it for concern. Look, he’s here,” she told them, “but if he’s not walking the _very crowded_ casino floor, then he’s up in the presidential suite with a bunch of his goons. You won’t be getting near him with only a sweet smile. And you have to get past Dino over there to get into the casino at all, which you won’t be doing with your weapons.”

Nate glanced over at Dino, who was guarding the door and the weapons check with nothing but a stern look and crossed arms bulging with muscles that made the sleeves of his suit jacket pull tight. “Well, thanks for the information....” he trailed off.

“Roxy,” she supplied, and he grinned.

“Thank you, Roxy. You’ve been a great help. We’ll just go speak to Dino.”

He was about to turn away when she spoke again. “You’re gonna kill him, aren’t you?”

Nate froze. Brad answered. “We can’t rule it out,” he said calmly, almost (but not quite) apologetically.

Roxy nodded, apparently to herself. “Well, I can’t say I’m going to mourn that son of a bitch. But I also don’t want to be here for the power struggle after he’s gone. Fuck it,” she said, standing up abruptly and grabbing a handbag from under the counter. “Gomorrah’s hiring dancers.”

Brad frowned as she stepped out from behind the counter, tugging her pencil skirt into place. “Isn’t that a step down from here?” he asked. “You wanna leave a nice respectable job to go get ogled and groped?”

Roxy rolled her eyes. “Dignity’s all well and good, pal, but my landlord charges the rent in _caps_ and the money’s great in professional ogling. See ya.” And they watched her saunter right out the door into the night. She walked past the boys who were still smoking; Nate couldn’t hear the comment they made but Roxy’s response was clear through the doors: “Take a good last look, fellas; it’s gonna cost you if you ever wanna see it again.” And she was gone, down the steps towards Gomorrah.

“Well, that was something,” said Brad.

Dino was staring at the front doors when they approached him. “Did Roxy just up and leave her post?” he asked, and Nate wondered if the question was rhetorical or if he wanted them to confirm it.

“She said something about leaving the gas on,” he said. “I’m sure she’ll come back.” 

Dino blinked as though just noticing them, even though Brad was taller than he was. “You here to gamble?” he asked.

“We’re actually wondering where Ray’s at,” said Nate. “I wanted to ask him about something.”

“Oh?” said Dino. “You on an asking-questions basis with Ray?”

“We have a history,” said Nate, meeting his staring contest calmly.

“You’re better off hitting the craps tables,” said Dino. “And I need to check your weapons if you’re going in. Don’t worry, you’ll get them back when you leave as long as you have your claim tickets.”

Brad dutifully unslung his rifle from over his shoulder and passed it to Dino’s assistant, who handed back a blue ticket. Nate gave Dino his shotgun, pressing an NCR $100 bill into his hand underneath it. “That’s all we’re carrying,” he said.

Dino gave the money a brief look before stuffing it in his pocket, handing off the shotgun and passing Nate his claim ticket with his other hand. “Sure thing,” he said. “In you go.”

Nate leaned in a little. “There’s another $50 if you can tell us where Ray is right now.”

“Whoa,” said Dino. “Okay, pal, you don’t want a pat-down, I can assume you’re just ticklish or something. But anything you want to do with Casey Kasem, that’s got nothing to do with me. Go play some dice, baby, have a drink. Loosen up. You look like you could use it.”

He waved them into the casino. Before the heavy wooden doors shut behind them, Nate heard the weapons attendant say, “What if they’re friends with the Boss, Dino?” and Dino’s reply: “He doesn’t have friends, dummy.”

“This bastard gets more charming with every story I hear,” said Brad when Dino’s voice was swallowed up in the noise of the casino in front of them.

“No shit,” said Nate, scanning the room. They were on the edge of the casino floor, which was full of off-duty NCR soldiers, men with fitted suits and slicked-back hair to match Dino’s, and crowds of well-dressed Mojave gamblers with caps to burn. “You kept your handgun, right?”

“Yep,” said Brad. “And a combat knife.”

“Good. I’ve got my .357 and my brass knuckles.”

“Where did you get that $100 bill from, anyway?” asked Brad.

“Your pants pocket,” said Nate, “right after Roxy left.” He didn’t see any checkered suits in the crowd, just grey ones. To the left was a staircase leading up to a balcony level and a sign that directed the way to the theatre and restaurant; the bank was on that side, too, behind gilt security bars. Cocktail waiters in white coats with black lapels glided around with trays of drinks and over to the right, past the roulette tables and a bank of slot machines, Nate caught sight of an elevator. “This way,” he said, beckoning over his shoulder at Brad before leading the way to that corner.

“I’d have given you the money if you’d asked, you know,” Brad groused. “You didn’t have to pick my pocket.”

“I know, but I didn’t want to risk drawing his attention, so bumping you was faster.” Nate wove through the crowds, trusting him to follow. “Next time, I promise I’ll ask for bribe money.”

Brad snorted. “Well, since you’re promising.”

Nate grinned, letting his hand trail along a metal railing as he walked up a short flight of steps out of the pit; he could see the elevator now. There was a sign above it marking it as the way to the presidential suite, and two bruisers in grey suits stood in front of the doors. A sawed-off shotgun leaned against the wall behind one of them, and Nate could see the outlines of a shoulder holster under the other one’s jacket. He marched right up to them.

“Sorry, sir, but the elevator to the hotel suites is up the stairs to your left,” said Shoulder Holster with a vague wave that way.

“I need to see Ray,” said Nate.

“Oh, I see,” said Shoulder Holster, and continued to stand there staring at him.

Nate chewed the inside of his cheek a little. “He’s upstairs, isn’t he?”

Shoulder Holster and Shotgun shared a glance. “And we’re all down here, together,” said Shotgun.

Shotgun looked like he was the one in charge; Nate turned his attention that way. “You must have some way of calling up there,” he said. “So you can tell him I’m here to speak to him, and then I assume you let me and my friend here in the elevator, since this isn’t a public meeting.”

“You’re pretty arrogant for not being very big,” said Shoulder Holster.

“That’s okay,” Brad piped up. “I’m here too.”

“Oh, for--just go call upstairs, Mikey,” said Shotgun, rolling his eyes waving off Shoulder Holster. “Get these weasels outta here.”

“And who shall I say is calling?” Mikey asked sarcastically.

Nate didn’t take the bait. “Tell him it’s the courier from Mathilda.”

“What?”

“Tell him that exactly,” Nate said. “You can follow directions, right, Mikey?”

Mikey glared and walked a few feet down the wall, picking up a telephone receiver off a wall hook and keeping an eye on Shotgun keeping an eye on them as he talked. Nate watched him grit his teeth, hang up the phone with unnecessary force and stalk back over.

“Well?” said Shotgun.

Mikey mutely hit the elevator call button.

“Really?” Shotgun looked back and forth between Mikey and Nate several times. “Who the fuck is this guy?”

“Get in, Courier,” was all Mikey said as the elevator door slid open. “Not you,” he pointed at Brad, stopping him in his tracks. “The Boss said he comes alone. You stay here with Sammy. Sammy, watch him.”

“I’m watching,” said Shotgun, glaring at Brad as if daring him to take another step toward the elevator.

“I’ll be fine,” said Nate, walking past Mikey holding the door open and turning to face Brad inside the elevator. “Just wait.”

Brad gave both guards a vicious look but stayed put. As the door slid shut between them, Nate thought he saw a flash of worry on Brad’s face.

The elevator started moving with a little lurch. Mikey turned toward him. “Think you’re a fucking tough guy, hu--” He fell back into the handrail, which knocked all the air out of him in a whoosh, and slid in a pile of limbs to the floor, blood gushing from his nose from the impact of Nate’s elbow. Nate kicked Mikey’s sprawling legs toward the corner of the elevator (which was barely large enough for two grown men) and braced himself for the elevator doors to open on... who knew what.

They opened on a hallway, decorated in brown wood paneling and green carpet runners. There were spiky ferns in pots on wooden tables.

Nate poked his head out and looked left and right. Nobody in sight. He’d been expecting heavies. Maybe the Chairmen thought the Tops was secure enough on its own.

He liberated the silenced nine-mil from Mikey’s shoulder holster, mostly in case Mikey regained consciousness, and after giving it a once-over he decided to strip it down and leave the pieces in a fern pot. The doors that led to the presidential suite were obvious: big, wood-paneled double doors that retained an echo of pre-War opulence. He reached into his bag, felt the heavy grip of his .357, and then left it where it was. He wasn’t going to go in guns blazing, not after all this effort. Nate’s shoes were silent on the carpet and the door opened with the smooth glide of regularly oiled hinges. He was in a sitting room that matched the hallway, with more wood-paneled walls leading up to a lofty ceiling with a broken and dark chandelier and a ring of green leather chairs surrounding a coffee table that was covered in beer bottles and ashtrays. The checkered suit jacket was thrown over the back of an armchair and a grating voice made his head whip to the left, where there was a liquor cabinet, a four-player card table surrounded by wooden chairs, and a faded and water-stained pool table.

“Where’s Mikey?”

“I left him in the elevator,” said Nate, squaring his shoulders to face the man who’d shot him. The leader of the Chairmen--Ray--was leaning on the edge of the pool table with a drink in his hand, his shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows and his tie tugged loose. He was short and squat and his face looked like leather; his eyes seemed beady. 

“He still alive?” His voice matched his looks. Nate was amazed to recognize him, feeling a hazy memory break through his head of that face staring down at him over a pistol barrel. His hands had been tied behind his back, he realized.

“I didn’t shoot him in the head, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Nate.

“Look, Courier, I’m real sorry about that business.” Ray put his drink down and walked around the table to lean on the side facing Nate. “It wasn’t personal or anything.”

“Felt pretty fucking personal,” said Nate, still feeling oddly calm. They could have been talking about the weather. “Killing people is about as personal as it gets.”

“But I obviously didn’t kill you! So that’s lucky. If it was an apology you came here for,” said Ray, pressing a hand over his heart, “then you’ve got it. I don’t even know you, so I have nothing against you. Bygones, right?”

“Bygones?” Nate echoed. “You tracked me, jumped me, robbed me, shot me in the head and buried me alive.”

Ray started to look uncomfortable. “It wasn’t exactly my finest hour, I’ll admit. I don’t like killing. Sometimes it’s a necessity.”

What this guy didn’t _like_ was getting his hands dirty, that was clear. Nate was disgusted that this piece of trash shared a first name with the man who’d dug him up and saved his life. It was a sick kind of irony. “I’m not here for your sad feelings and excuses. I’m here to take back what you stole from me.”

“Oh, the kids I was with sold that gun.”

“Not the gun,” said Nate. “The package I was delivering. The poker chip.”

Ray smiled. “The poker chip was the whole point of the exercise, pal. I can’t possibly give it back.”

“Think again.”

“You don’t even know what you were carrying, do you?”

“It was a platinum Lucky 38 poker chip.”

“It was more than that, baby. It was the key to the Mojave.”

“Whatever,” said Nate.

“Courier, you are an insignificant player in a very large game you don’t understand. Now, it’s sad that you lost big before you even knew you were playing or what the stakes were, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

This sounded a little too much like the psyker kid at the 188 when he’d done Nate’s forecast. “What the fuck game are you talking about? Where’s the fucking poker chip?”

“Mr. House,” said Ray, “over at the Lucky 38.” He waved in that direction before bracing his hand back on the edge of the pool table. “You were supposed to deliver it to him. Now, there were six packages going to him. The other five were decoys in his little shell game. Unluckily for you, Courier, I knew where the lady was, and she was in your hands. He’s been looking for that poker chip for a long, long time. He lost it before the War.”

“Oh,” said Nate as reasonably as possible. “So you’re saying that Mr. House is like 200 years old. Right.”

Ray shrugged in a ‘whatcha gonna do’ kind of way. “I know he’s been throwing caps after that thing like nobody’s business. Hundreds of thousands. And he can’t leave the casino, so you had to bring it. Now, not too many people know who Mr. House is. But the three big families on the Strip--my gang, the guys over at the Ultra-Luxe, and those fucks who run Gomorrah--we all know him. To us, he’s the Godfather, you get it baby?”

“I’m not your fucking baby,” said Nate.

Ray laughed. It sounded even more grating than his voice. “We all used to be no better than Fiends. Running around the desert in leather and rags, killing geckos for food and robbing caravans. Godfather brought us to the Strip, we started running these casinos. Now we’re the top of the heap, you dig me? And then the NCR moved in, and he’s got a deal with them. We take their caps. Now the Legion’s coming for their piece and let’s not kid ourselves that the NCR can stand up to that, the bunch of mooks. But the Godfather, now, he’s got a plan. A genius plan. You know he used to own a controlling share in RobCo, who made all the robots? All the Securitrons were his invention.”

“I did not know that,” said Nate. He braced his hand and a hip on one of the poker table chairs, feeling suddenly exhausted.

“It’s true. And that chip, pal, that chip! That’s his master plan. He puts that chip in his big damn computer he’s got up in the spire of the Lucky 38 and all his Securitrons get a little upgrade. He gets those things going and ring-a-ding-ding!” Ray clapped his hands loudly, rubbed them together a little in glee. “King of all he surveys!”

“I see,” said Nate. “So the chip is a storage thing.”

“I wasn’t lying that it’s the key,” Ray insisted. “It’s not just Godfather who can be king. Anyone who has that chip has control over his robot army. And to the victor go the spoils, as they say.”

Now he felt he understood. “And you have the key.”

Ray gave him a big, toothy grin, spreading his hands. “Biggest jackpot there is, baby.”

Nate’s grip tightened involuntarily on the back of the chair he was leaning on and he heard it creak. “So I was shot and left for dead, not to mention I’m now being stalked by snipers from my own job, because I accepted a hot-shot delivery from a weird old recluse and got dragged into a power struggle over Hoover Dam.”

Ray--the Boss Chairman, Casey Kasem, wannabe despot, Ring-a-Ding-Douchebag--nodded sympathetically. “Nothing you could do, kid. The game was rigged from the start.”

Nate blinked. “You said that right before you shot me,” he realized.

Ray shrugged.

“Did you dig my grave yourself or did your native guides do that part for you?”

“Look, I already apologized for shooting you. I’d do it all over again but you understand what the stakes are, now, right? I mean, I do regret it. I like you. You’re alright.”

“Hey, thanks,” said Nate, and picked up the chair and swung it at Ray’s head. It was a nice, heavy chair, and well-balanced, and Ray didn’t have time to do anything beyond look hilariously surprised before he was flying sideways, bouncing off the edge of the pool table and landing on all fours on the threadbare green rug.

“What the fuck was that?” he coughed, obviously too dizzy to get up. “You got a death wish or some--”

Nate swung the chair again, bringing it down across the back of Ray’s shoulders. A leg broke off, clattering away under the pool table, and Ray sprawled across the rug. He rolled back up onto his knees, impressively, and Nate guessed that kind of toughness was how you got to be in charge of a gang as large and powerful as the Chairmen even when you were a sniveling piece of shit. Ray’s hand was reaching toward the shoulder holster he wore; Nate twisted his stance and swung upward, pivoting into kind of a golf swing, and watched the seat catch his would-be murderer under the chin and his almost graceful backwards arc as Ray’s head snapped back and the rest of him followed, landing with a hard knock on the floor and skidding back another several inches before he came to a stop, spread-eagled and out cold.

He still had a pulse; Nate dropped the pieces of chair and set to searching Ray’s body, pulling the gun he’d been reaching for out of its holster. This was the gun he’d used, Nate realized, staring at it. Something glinted on the barrel and he turned it to catch the lamplight: ‘Maria’ was engraved along its length. “What a fucking asshole,” Nate breathed, stuffing the gun into his messenger bag.

The poker chip was in Ray’s shirt pocket, shiny as the day he’d picked up the package. Nate weighed it in his hand; platinum wasn’t too heavy. Hard to believe this was worth so much bloodshed. 

On the way out of the presidential suite, Nate picked up the checkered jacket off the back of its chair, wadded it up and pitched it into the ashes of the fireplace. The radio was the only thing breaking the silence and it was playing that goddamned song again: “ _Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still/Whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still/Whoever is filthy, let him be filthy still..._ ” crawled over the back of a tinny-sounding guitar into Nate’s ears as he pulled the heavy suite door open. “Shut up,” he hissed quietly. He didn’t need any associations being created by that stupid song.

Mikey was sitting upright on the floor of the elevator, cradling his face. “You b’oge by doze,” he accused Nate, glaring up at him.

Nate hit the button for the casino and stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking down at Mikey. “And then I stopped,” he pointed out.

Mikey scowled under his cupped hands but didn’t say anything else. Nate wondered if he’d heard his boss-man getting the shit beat out of him.

Brad practically jumped in the elevator as soon as the doors started to open again; Nate faintly saw Sammy in the background, failing to keep Brad at bay. “Are you okay?” Brad demanded. He did a double-take at Mikey, who was trying to get off the floor with one blood-crusted hand still covering his nose.

“I’m okay,” said Nate, allowing Brad to clutch at his arms and giving him a return pat on the shoulder. “I got some closure, I guess.”

Brad looked up at the ceiling. “Is he dead?”

“He’s just sleeping. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

They ditched their guard detail and made their way through the casino crowds.

“So what the fuck happened up there?” Brad asked in an undertone.

“I got to hear his very excellent rationale for his actions, and then I knocked him out with a chair,” said Nate. “The violence felt more satisfying than I thought it would, I’ll admit.”

“I probably wouldn’t have left him alive in your place,” said Brad. “But that’s me.”

Nate reached into his bag and pulled out the poker chip, flipping it over the backs of his knuckles and feeling a little smirk pull up the corners of his mouth. “Oh, I’m going to do him one better than killing him,” he said, a plan forming in his head as he spoke. “He’s gonna wish I’d turned his own gun on him by the time I’m done fucking up his little scheme.”

Dino had the sense to not bother speaking to them; he just nodded at his assistant to hand back their guns. “I don’t really want to know what’s going on, do I?” Brad asked as he slung his rifle back over his shoulder.

Nate shook his head and tucked the chip away again, then glanced sidelong at Brad. “What are you gonna do now that the epic quest for my revenge is over?”

Brad returned the look. “That a subtle way of telling me to hit the road? Already tired of me?”

“Not yet.”

Brad smirked. “What’s next, boss?”

Nate hooked his arm through Brad’s as they walked out the front door of the Tops and into the pleasant nighttime breeze wafting through New Vegas. The lights were bright, the cards were hot and he wanted no part of any of it. “First,” he said, “I’ve got one last delivery to make, to clear my books before I resign from Mojave Express.”

“And then?”

“Let’s just let the chips fall where they may.”

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I started this fic 2.5 years ago. I'm glad I finally finished it; I wrote the last half in the last six months.


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